Nana Akufo-Addo & Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia surrounded by NPP sympathizers
Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Friday, July 5, 2013
The volumes of unsigned pink sheets filed as exhibits
by the petitioners in the ongoing Presidential Election Petit
The EC boss in his evidence-in-chief had testified that
only 905 of the 26,002 polling stations pink sheets representing 3.5 per cent were
not signed by the commission’s Presiding Officers who supervised the December
2012 presidential elections.
Dr. Afari-Gyan went ahead to state categorically
that even if the 905 unsigned pink sheets were taken into consideration, it
could not affect the declaration of the presidential election results which
made John Dramani Mahama, 1st respondent in the petition outright
winner with 50.70 per cent of the valid votes cast.
However, when the EC boss resumed his
cross-examination yesterday after several hiccups due
to the pink sheets disagreement, Philip Addison, lead counsel for the
petitioners handed him volumes of pink sheets which all except one, were not
signed by the Presiding Officers and all the pink sheets were outside the 905
claimed by Dr. Afari-Gyan.
The EC boss admitted they were unsigned saying “My
Lords, they were all not signed.”
Mr. Addison after getting Dr. Afari-Gyan to admit
different sets of pink sheets that were not signed by the presiding officers
then tendered in evidence each of the lists through the witness without any
objection from counsel for the respondents.
The list included 179, 182, 55 and 114 which were
all outside the 905 which have already been tendered in evidence.
Mr. Addison later alerted the court that after sorting
the lists out with the respondents legal teams as directed, they (respondents) disagreed
with them on some of the pink sheets in relation to the KPMG report but added
that “we have not abandoned those ones…we are going to bring them later.”
Objection
The major objection of the day was raised by James
Quarshie-Idun, lead counsel for the EC when Mr. Addison introduced a list of seven
pink sheets that were also unsigned.
“My Lords, we have gone through this list and the 7
do not tally with what was captured in the KPMG report,” EC counsel insisted
before Tony Lithur, representing President
Mahama added that asking questions on the set of pink sheet could be “highly
prejudicial.”
NDC gurus
Tsatsu Tsikata,
representing the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) entered the fray
insisting that “we have no idea when these pink sheets were generated,” and
added that “we have evidence that additional pink sheets were introduced, an
evidence which have not been challenged,” and said “we cannot have a situation
where newly generated pink sheets will be added.”
Owusu vrs Tsikata
Justice Rose Owusu, a
panel member cut in to say that it was the polling station that mattered and
not the exhibit numbers and said if the polling station could clearly be
identified but had exhibit numbers mixed up it might well be accepted.
Mr. Tsikata then told the court that “it is not open to any of us as it is now to reconstruct the case of the Petitioners” and said that the Petitioners had categorized their allegations into 24 but it appeared a new category had been introduced.
Mr. Tsikata then told the court that “it is not open to any of us as it is now to reconstruct the case of the Petitioners” and said that the Petitioners had categorized their allegations into 24 but it appeared a new category had been introduced.
“The KPMG report has captured a completely
different polling station for exhibit MBG and if you are looking at the polling
station name, the report captures it as under MBF, a different category. So my
Lord this is a mess,” he argued.
He said the pink sheets
now labeled as MBG which the Petitioners were intending to cross examine Dr.
Afari-Gyan on, was found in the KPMG report as MBF and that was unacceptable
saying “We cannot as we speak have the Petitioners seek to re-label their
exhibits.”
Justice Owusu
came in again saying “In fact in this case what we
are actually dealing with are the polling stations so if that polling station
is captured then whether is somewhere marked exhibit MBK and another place
marked as exhibit KYX, it is not very material if the same polling station is
what we are dealing with,” but Mr. Tsikata stood his grounds and said the
exhibits could not be re-categorized since the petition had not been amended.
When the argument became
heated Justice Owusu said she remembered Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia testifying that
they had problems with the labeling and after rechecking they had to re-label
some of the categories but Mr Tsikata again said the court needed to go
strictly according to what was deposed to by the petitioners.
Gbadegbe’s Advice
Justice Sulley
N. Gbadegbe then said “I think that at the end of
the day that is why we are here, you address us and point things out to us
because it is like evidence being led by person contrary to his case, at the
end of the day, you point it out to the judge,” but Mr. Tsikata again said that
would be too late.
Justice Doste came in at a point to
emphasize Justice Gbadegbe’s point that those issues needed to be used in the
addresses.
Lithur Comes Back
Mr. Lithur came back
again and said the respondent had concluded their cross examination and had
begun writing their addresses and those addresses were based on 24 exclusive
categories of irregularities and therefore any change in labeling and
categories was going to affect their case.
Mr Addison then responded to the
objection saying that there was no generation of new pink sheets adding “if we were generating new pink sheets,
we will not find thee counterpart in the KPMG report.”
“ Each of these pink sheets are
reflected in the KPMG report and my Lords, we have indicated the corresponding KPMG
exhibits on the lists that they have.
Unfortunately, my learned friends are
referring to some other exhibit number which we haven’t referred to. We all
know that there have be duplications but we have taken the trouble for each of
the pink sheet to indicate the corresponding
KPMG pink sheets. It is there on the sheet and my learned friend is
quoting some other exhibit number.”
NPP gurus
Baffoe-Bonnie’s Reminder
Justice Baffoe-Bonnie reminded Mr.
Addison that the petition bothered on particular categories and said “you want
us to put all the exhibits together and start sorting out the categories,”
adding “what is important was what was
counted under the categories.
Justice William Atuguba then said “I want to be clear about
this, it appears Dr. Bawumia tendered in evidence the list of categorization or
something… I want to just be clear about that. See that was a problem you
created, the moment he did that you should have tendered that list and then it would have solved this problem
because throughout his evidence, he there were mislabeling and he had
re-categorized some but if the list was tendered, it would have facilitated things because as for
KPMG we have to distinguish between the two exercises .KPMG was to find out how
many exhibits were delivered but the mutations in evidential course of the
trial will not be reflected there if evidence was led on it, it holds and so it
could be used to ascertain the true position because it was let in evidence.”
Mr. Addison responded that it was the
same re-categorization that they sought to tender initially which was
vehemently opposed by the respondents and subsequently rejected by the court.
Ruling
After the break, the court unanimously
overruled the objection indicating that it was pre-emptive since Mr. Addison
had not even put any question on the re-categorization to Dr. Afari-Gyan.
Mr. Addison later abandoned the list of
seven pink sheets saying “in order to make progress, we will deal with the non
contentious issues.”
He then introduced another batches of
unsigned pink sheets for Dr. Afari-Gyan to go through and confirm which the
commissioner did and in each instance admitted they were unsigned.
It was at this point that counsel told
the court that the pink sheets being shown to the witness were all outside the
905 after Justice Baffoe-Bonnie had sought clarification.
‘I
didn’t Understand’
Mr. Addison: Dr Afari-Gyan, you were to provide us with the list of 905 pink
sheet where you admit that there were no signatures, do you have it with you?
Dr Afari-Gyan: Yes my Lord I do.
Mr. Addison: Can you point out t o us where we will find this list of 905
polling stations.
Dr Afari-Gyan: My Lords I remember that we said we had already provided this
information to the petitioners and if my memory serves me correct, one of my Lord’s
said supposing they change the first page and give it to you, you will accept
and I remember counsel saying yes and this is precisely what we have done, they
are here. My Lord when we received the allegation that some pink sheets had not
been signed by presiding officers. We took those pink sheets that were alleged
not have been signed and we listed them one by one and then we indicated
whether they had been signed or not signed. I did indicate that some of them
were signed at the instance of the retaining officer at the collation center so
there will a difference between the ones that they had and the ones that we had and that the ones that
we had that were signed were contained in this document. This is the document
that we have produced.
Justice Jones Dotse: The question is can you identify the pink sheet from this list
that qualify to the 905 that you claim had not be signed. On this list contains
only those polling station.
Dr. Afari-Gyan: It contains the constituency, the results the petitioners claim to
be unsigned, the number that according to our records have been signed by
presiding officers and the number not signed by presiding officers. So all the
data is in there.
Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie: you were asked to provide a list of pink sheets which where not
signed after the presiding officers or retaining officer. The 905 which you
admit were eventually not signed according to him, you agreed to provide that
list.
Dr. Afari-Gyan: My Lord I did not understand the request to be that.
Justice Sophia O. Adinyira: in my thought, Mr. Addison was looking for something else. I
thought he is asking for pink sheets which were unsigned at the polling station
but were signed at the collation centre at the request of the presiding centre.
Is that what you want?
Mr. Addison: No my Lord, they said there were 905 unsigned pink sheets and we
said they should give us a list of those unsigned pink sheets that they admit
that they are unsigned. My question is can you tell us the pages we can find
the 905 list of polling stations that are unsigned.
Gloria Akufo - NPP
Dr. Afari-Gyan: Pink sheet by pink sheet I can’t. I can tell the number of pink
sheets that have been signed but if he is making reference to specific pink
sheets, I cannot but I cannot tell you what the specific pink sheets are.
Justice Rose Owusu: I thought that was the main reason why we gave you time to produce
the 905 pink sheets which had not been signed that was the purpose off the
exercise.
Dr. Afari-Gyan: But my Lord I did not understand the point to be that.
Quarshie-Idun: My Lord if I may make an observation here. If you recall we tried
to produce the document we prepared after receiving the further and better
particulars. When we filed a verifying affidavit to which we attached the
document as an exhibit stating that out of the X number that they claim were
not signed, 907 were signed. Mr Addison objected on the grounds that they had
amended their answer and so that fell to the bottom of the sea so our amended
answer also few to the bottom of the sea and could not be referred to and then
the question was asked so that if that cover page which referred to the
affidavit was removed, would you accept it? And the answer was yes and that is
what the witness is holding in his hand. He claimed that the verifying affidavit
could no longer be referred to so we removed the cover which referred to the
verifying affidavit and we have the document which we have earlier filled and
we can check from the records my Lord.
Justice Rose Owusu: Mr Quarshie-Idun, how did he arrive at the figure 905? These pink
sheets have been identified so what is his difficulty in listing them?
Mr. Quarshie-Idun: My Lord when we received the further and better particulars, this
document is the result of the inquiries we did to come to the 905 that has not
been signed and that is what he has in his hand.
Justice Rose Owusu: So do you expect him to go flip through the papers to find what
and what totaled the 905?
Quarshie-Idun: the document has the list of polling stations and an indication
of whether they were signed or not my Lord.
Justice Rose Owusu: that is what he says point out to that page.
Dr. Afari-Gyan: My Lords, that will take
some time but I could do that
Justice Rose Owusu: you can do that today so we jump onto something else and then maybe
during the lunch break, we give you time to do that.
Justice Jones Dotse: Dr Afari-Gyan does this
list contain a list of more than 905 pink sheets or polling stations?
Victor Adawudu & Nana Ato Dadzie both from NDC
Dr. Afari-Gyan: It will
contain about 2009 polling stations.
Justice Jones Dotse: Now if it contains that number, can you indicate at your own time
the 905 by marking them
Dr. Afari-Gyan: My Lord I
can easily do that
Mr. Addison: Take a look at these
pink sheets. Dr Afari-Gyan you have in your hands pink sheets from the Q
series. They related to duplicate serial numbers and no signatures but for our
purposes today, we dealing with no signatures. Can you go through these pink
sheets and confirm that they don’t have any signature of the presiding officer.
Dr. Afari-Gyan started going through the
each pink sheet carefully.
Dr. Afari-Gyan: My Lord i have look at all of them and none of them have been
signed by the presiding officer.
Mr. Addison: from the list you have
there are 179 pink sheets
Dr. Afari-Gyan: But the
list started from 601-779, they are not serially numbered so I cannot tell.
Mr. Addison: Now I’m further
suggesting that this list of 179 unsigned ink sheets are not included in the
905 that you admit have not been signed
Dr. Afari-Gyan: My Lords I
will not be able to tell without checking.
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