AFARI-GYAN ADMITS DOUBLE DOUBLE

Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Nana Akufo-Addo & Dr. Bawumia leave the court

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday July 11, 2013

It has emerged that three pink sheets representing the same polling station called Finger of God Church, were used in the December 2012 Presidential Election.

It also emerged that some people were able to do double registration in spite of the introduction of the Biometric Registration by the Electoral Commission (EC) which was aimed at curbing multiple registration.

Additionally, the list of 905 pink sheets which Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, EC Chairman admitted were unsigned and subsequently supplied to the court, contained about 18 duplications in each of the code numbers.

Finger of God Church

Yesterday, when the three pink sheets were put before Dr. Afari-Gyan, during cross examination at the ongoing Presidential Election Petition, he admitted knowledge of the documents and went ahead to give the name, codes and exhibit numbers before telling the court the he had an ‘observation’ to make.

He was then asked by Philip Addison, lead counsel for the petitioners to answer the questions and make the observation and the EC boss’s ‘observation’ was that he was ready to provide the original pink sheets of the three polling stations and when asked to do so  he was able to produce two out of the three.

Instead of producing the third pink sheet, Dr. Afari-Gyan rather brought out a Collation Form to support his case, compelling Mr. Addison to protest the EC boss’s action.

Interestingly it was this same Collation Form that was vehemently opposed by the respondents including the EC when the petitioners put in a motion to request for all the 275 from the constituencies in the country, which the court subsequently rejected.

The court had no option but to expunge the piece of evidence given by Dr. Afari-Gyan in respect of the Collation Form because Mr. Addison had said they were going to put in another request for all the 275 constituencies.

NDC and NPP gurus 

Mr Addison: Dr Afari-Gyan, how many pink sheets do you have in your hands.

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords I have 3 pink sheets

Mr Addison:  Can you please tell us the details of the pink sheets, exhibit number, polling station name, polling station code.

Dr Afari-Gyan: One is exhibit MBW 0000003, the polling station name is Finger of God Church Kubekrom and the polling station code is C140802B and the other one is MBAB 000020 and the polling station name is Finger of God Church, polling station code C140802

Mr Addison: So Dr Afari-Gyan can you confirm that those 3 pink sheets refer to the same polling station

Dr Afari-Gyan: Yes my Lord but I have an observation to make, two of them have been signed, one of them has no signature of either the presiding officer or any agent

Mr Addison: Maybe if you wait and let me finish asking you the questions, you can make your observation at the end. Now, there are two pink sheets there with the same presiding officer. Am I right.

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords no. One sheet presiding officer is Maxwell something, the other one is Gladys Amaning Kwarteng.

Mr Addison: There is a third one

Dr Afari-Gyan: Third one has no signature what so ever. There is no name of the presiding officer or anything. My Lord there is another interesting one but in this case we can check on it because we have checked on this. The polling station name counsel is telling me is the presiding officer writes her name in the polling station name column so polling station name Gladys Koranteng and there is nothing what so ever at the back

Justice Dotse: Gladys Koranteng being the name of the presiding officer or the polling station?

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords in this case we have the original sheet here. Definitely Gladys Koranteng is not the name of the polling station. I have the original pink sheet here which indicates that Afotey Maxwell was the presiding officer that one will correspond with the…

Mr Addison (cuts in): Dr Afari-Gyan, do you have the originals of the documents you have in your hands?

Dr Afari-Gyan: One original

Mr Addison: But you have three there what about the other two.

Dr Afari-Gyan: Only two are entered on the collation sheet 

Mr Addison: My Lords we are perplexed by his answer. Now where does the collation sheet come into this? If he is going to use the collation sheets, he should let us have all the collation sheets. I thought that we are doing this case without the collation sheets and then suddenly you are spring this surprise on everybody. You said you had the original of the pink sheets and you were asked to produce it

Dr Afari-Gyan: Well I thought I had both of them now it turns out that I have one of them but I know that two of these numbers have been entered on the collation sheet 

Mr Addison: My Lord I think that this evidence on the collation sheet must be expunged from the record otherwise we will demand that he produces all the collation sheets  

Mr Quarshie-Idun:  My Lord the evidence on record is that the polling station records are taken to the collation center and entered on the collation sheet. There has been no agreement that this case is being fought on only pink sheets

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords I also checked on the mysterious 27 zero polling station

Cecelia Abena Dapaah & Oboshie Sai Coffie

Mr Addison: We have not asked you a question on that you do not have the free range to be addressing the court. When you get to your re-examination, you can do that 

Mr Quarshie-Idun: My Lord we have search through to produce the two because I believe they are here

Duplications in 905 Pink Sheets

Mr Addison also tendered in evidence through Dr. Afari-Gyan, 371 pink sheets prepared on 12 different lists which the EC boss admitted were all not signed by the Presiding Officers but later tried to repeat his position that some of the pink sheets were signed at the collation centres upon the promptings of the Returning Officers.

This confirms that signatures on the pink sheets are very crucial hence the presiding officers signing after the polling station polls declaration.

The list which Dr Afari-Gyan said the presiding officers signed later was after all the party agents had been given the unsigned copies, which is contrary to the law.

The law says the presiding officers sign before declaration of results at the polling stations. 

The list of 371 polling stations were all not part of the 905 unsigned pin sheets earlier tendered.

Mr. Addison took Dr. Afari-Gyan through the 905 list where he pointed out to the electoral commissioner that two each within 18 polling stations had the same code or shared the same name.

Initially, he fully agreed with the petitioners’ counsel that some of the 18 polling stations in the list either shared same code number each or shared the same name but later tried to tell the court that they were mistakes.

Mr Addison: Dr Afari-Gyan, take a look at this list. Can you tell the court the list that you have in your hand?

Dr Afari-Gyan: Mr Lords it is entitled pink sheets with no signature MBF series not considered by the EC lot 2

Mr Addison: Now have you had the opportunity to go through the pink sheets listed there?

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords personally no.

Mr Quarshie-Idun: My Lord if I may be permitted just to make one observation, we received 10 sheets last night, we have checked them and we have no objection so to save time we would even prefer all 10 to be given to Dr Afari-Gyan to save the tremendous amount of time. If they are even given to him without the pink sheets, I think it will even save more time.

Mr Addison: My Lord whatever way they will all have to be tendered and he will have to indicate what the list is anyway so we can still don it and it will follow the same pattern…

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords I have one observation. You may recall that I did say that some of the pink sheets  were signed at the coalition center at the instance of the returning officer…this list include such and we can produce a list of them if it is so required.

The Caveat

Mr Addison: My Lord I don’t know what to make of this statement because we were just told some moments ago that there is no objection to these lists. Now it is being tendered, some caveat is being introduced. We are saying that all these pink sheets have no signature and if we have to go through these, we will do that why this caveat?

Yaw Buaban Asamoah & Gloria Akufo

Justice Atuguba: It is the witness who has come out with this

Mr Addison: if that is the case, them we will go through the motions and show him the pink sheets that they don’t have signatures.

Justice Jones Dotse: I just think that detracts from his earlier testimony. See you must consider what he has said previously. He said the sub retaining officers realized some of the pink sheets have not been signed at the polling station so at the coalition centers, at which stage I presume the party agents had already left with their copies so the retaining officers at the coalition centers as the presiding officers to sign the copies they had that his evidence before this court. I was only saying that some of the pink sheets you have mentioned in the 12 list you have presented this morning had been signed at the coalition centers.

Mr Addison: Our case is that, they have admitted 905 and we say that more than 905 pink sheets are unsigned and this is the evidence we are providing to the court. That is our case and if he disputes it we will put the pink sheet to him to see that there is no signature on it so that that caveat does not arrive at this instance because the list we have here has no signature on them.

Mr Tsikata: My Lords, respectfully we also will not object to the tendered of this list but no one can conceivably regard the tendering of this list as excluding a witness from testifying as to signatures being put on pink sheets related to anything on those list. We do not want to waste anymore time on these list, they were brought to us very late last night but we have quickly gone through them, there is one that is 74 pages long which we will come to later but we do not intern to waste time on the list being tendered we have no objection to the list but it does not prevent testimony over about what is on the list

Mr Quarshie-Idun:  We also have exhibit P which is already in evidence and it has some parts that are purely relevant to this matter my Lords. I could read it because it is in evidence already

Mr Addison: Dr Afari-Gyan I’m suggesting to you that the exhibits just tendered, exhibit T1-T11 are not included in the list of 905 polling stations tendered by you are not included in exhibit P

Dr Afari-Gyan: They are not part of the 905, I agree

Mr Addison:  I further suggest to you that the earlier exhibits on non-signature exhibit HJKLN and M are also not part of the 905 in the exhibit P

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords I cannot confirm that without seeing them

Mr Addison: Dr Afari-Gyan can you take a look at exhibit P

Justice Annin-Yeboah: He has not answered you last question

Mr Addison: He has not answered. Can you please show him the exhibit HJKLN and M

Mr Tsikata: My Lord respectfully, we’ve dealt with those previously, the questions have been asked about them in cross examination they have been answered. Are we going back to a repetition of this question? 

Mr Quarshie-Idun: My Lord I would draw attention to the exhibit which contain what your Lordship will call a lot of crossing out so I would maintain as Mr Tsikata has said that this has already been dealt with. The original has deletions your Lordship will recall from the exhibits particularly for this purpose so i would say this is a matter for address and deductions from the exhibits and exhibit P my Lord

Mr Addison: My Lords on the logic of Mr Tsikata we should not be asking any questions at all because even about no signature is clear on the face of the pink sheet so that there is no need to ask questions. That is what he is saying. It is a simple question i have asked the witness, he can answer it, he is capable of answering it. All this time we spent exchanging these objections he could have answered and then we move on.  Simple question if he can’t he says so then we move on.

Mr Tsikata: The witness answered that without checking he is not in the position to answer and my point is that if we are going to wait on him checking we would be going against the ducting’s that your Lordships have provided that is all. 

Justice Atuguba: Well I understand your point but is there any prejudice that your case will suffer if these matters before us are left to be inferred from the documents already before us? 

Mr Addison: My Lord, it goes to his credibility after all these are lists that we canceled several of them because they said it was in their list of 905, why can’t he confirm in the box that these lists are not in the 905, I want him to answer it and lets see his credibility on those matters. Why can’t he confirm it. They have gone through a lot of trouble for us to cancel so many of these things and now we asking him a simple question that can you confirm that it is not in the 905, it becomes a difficulty

Justice Atuguba: Let us save time you see because if these lists are there, I see the point about credibility but if these are documents which have been dealt with the witness, they’ve been tendered and then he is asked whether these things are inside and all that assuming he falters I mean it looks like a kind of technical slip which may not go too far to credibility isn’t it? It is just like arithmetical error in something like this

Nana Ato Dadzie

Mr Addison: My Lord I can assure you that so many of such questions were put to Dr Bawumia, now I’m being told there is pressure of time pressure of times when I ask these questions, witness should not answer.

Justice Atuguba:  No no no lets get it clear. In fact when Tsikata took the objection, I was processing something in my mind that maybe one this list of 905 was brought others they insisted on exact extraction on them. That is not quiet the same as this and you will appreciate that when a case starts, we gather experience as it goes

I can’t Carry Register in My Head

Dr. Afari-Gyan in trying to answer a question on the 905 pink sheets cheekily remarked “I can’t carry the list in my head.”

Justice Sulley Nasiru Gbadegbe, a member of the panel asked Dr. Afari-Gyan to “express yourself in a much more acceptable language,” before Justice Vida Akoto-Bamfo said “your answers are being addressed to the court and not to counsel.”

Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords I cannot carry the list of the 905 polling station in my head so if you want me to confirm this I will have will have to check physically against the 905 polling stations

 

Mr Addison: I don’t think that was a polite answer and if we start using such words, people will complain.

Mr Quarshie-Idun: My Lord I beg to disagree, the witness was explaining why he couldn’t answer the question.

Justice Gbadegbe: You could say I cannot remember the list but not carry it in his head so. Even as a matter of Language I think Dr Afari-Gyan ordinarily will not express himself that way. So all that he is saying is that you express yourself in much more acceptable language 

Justice Akoto-Bamfo: Remember that your answers are being addressed to the court and not to counsel

Dr Afari-Gyan: I cannot remember the entire list of 905 so I cannot say whether they are in or not in without physically comparing

Double Registration

Dr. Afari-Gyan identified the Final Voters Register 2012 for LA Primary School Adaklu in the Adaklu Constituency as well as the Afadjato Constituency all in the Volta Region and admitted there were double registrations in them.

He however, said in respect of one of the polling stations, the voter whose name appeared twice had Face Only (FO) in one of photographs in that register.

Dr. Afari-Gyan also admitted that he was aware that people could do double registration with different names in spite of the biometric programme but said the commission could discover them.

When Mr. Addison handed him an exhibit Dr. Afari-Gyan said it was an extract from a register but requested for an register and not the extract.

He said as a matter of law, no extracts were to be made without the express permission from the EC and Mr. Addison asked him to take the extract home and come back with the original.

Dr. Afari-Gyan has since promised to furnish the court with the register for…Polling Station since he said the extract shown him by Mr Addison was not coming from proper custody.

The Fight

When it became apparent that Mr. Addison could not proceed with the cross-examination due to the fact that the list of polling stations pink that the petitioners are claiming shared same serial number had been mixed up, Mr. Tsikata became incensed and said they were not going to cross check any list again after doing it several times.

He accused the petitioners of providing a 74 page list in the P series which was full of errors and said it was the third time they were having to reject a list in respect of the same series which was full of errors.

Mr. Tsikata said they were not going to dignify the crosschecking exercise anymore and described it as ‘worthless.’

He said when the petitioners offer to tender that document they will not raise any objection and allow it to go in evidence for all its worth.

Mr. Addison fired back saying his IT staff went through great pains in compiling that document and with the pressure involved it was possible for them to make mistakes.

He said anytime a single information was omitted it was automatically going to affected the entire list and expresses surprise at the conduct of Mr. Tsikata.

He said the NDC counsel took two weeks hammering on duplicates and triplicates adding that Mr. Tsikata used 4000 pink sheets in his cross examination of the Petitioners' witness but in all that the petitioners cooperated with them.

He said he found it strange that Mr. Tsikata could now turn around to complain that the petitioners were wasting the court’s time.

Public Warning

Before the commencement of the proceedings, Justice Atuguba once again issued a warning to the public to stop writing to the judges in respect of the case.

“We will like to draw attention to some unwholesome development afflicting us. Some people have started writing letters to us about this case making suggestions and all…some highly placed and all that but a layman is a layman,” he said.

“ We want to believe that maybe they don’t know technical that it is wrong  to write to the court or correspond to the court in this matter so we want to make it known that such things are also contemptuous and not different from Newspapers expressing views. Some you will be surprised at the names writing like this but I want to believe maybe they don’t know so let the message go out that the practice should cease,” Justice Atuguba warned.

Sitting continues today.