Election Petition Hearing SUPREME COURT CAN’T OVERTURN EC’s DECISION - NDC Majority Caucus host declares

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Wednesday, 03 July 2013 00:00

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Election Petition Hearing SUPREME COURT CAN’T OVERTURN EC’s DECISION - NDC Majority Caucus host declares

Barely 24 hours after Justice William Atuguba, president of the nine-member panel of justices hearing the presidential election petition at the Supreme Court, had issued a final warning to all to desist from making contemptuous statements relating to the hearing, a member of the National Democratic Congress made a comment which appeared to have flouted the warning.

The host of MultiTV’s evening political programme, Majority Caucus, Ali Dawood, stated on Tuesday June 25, 2013, that there was no way the Supreme Court could overturn any decision made by the Electoral Commission regarding the 2012 elections.

Mr Dawood, at exactly 7:03pm, before introducing panellists on the NDC programme, stated: “I do not see any Supreme Court over-turning any decision made by the EC”.

According to the NDC man, “President Mahama’s presidency is going to be intact. If anything at all, it is going to be confirmed by the Supreme Court and that there is never going to be a time, whether 2013 or the years to come, where we will have over-turning of verdicts in the Supreme Court; it is not going to happen.”

He continued: “For all of you NDC, including NPP, neutral minded persons watching me, nothing is going to come out of the Supreme Court case. No Supreme Court is going to over-turn any decision, take it from me.”

The Supreme Court on Thursday, June 27, 2013, issued an order for Stephen Atubiga, together with Kwaku Boahen, Ashanti Regional Youth Organiser of the NDC, and Ken Kuranchie, Managing Editor of the Searchlight newspaper, to appear before it today to answer to some comments they had made about the ongoing election petition hearing.

Ken Kuranchie was summoned to answer to some views expressed in a front-page comment in the Thursday, June 27, edition of his newspaper.

Stephen Atugiba and Kwaku Boahen were summoned to the court in respect of comments they made to the effect that the National Democratic Congress, and for that matter President John Dramani Mahama, would not be prepared to hand over power to the New Patriotic Party, in the event that the ongoing election petition was decided in favour of the petitioners.

The comments of the two NDC members were reported in the Thursday, June 27, 2013 edition of the New Statesman.

Since the publication, the paper’s attention has, however, been drawn to the fact that Kwaku Boahen originally made his comment on Wednesday, June 12, 2013, and not at the same time Stephen Atubiga made similar comments.

The public declaration of intention by some members of the NDC not to accept an unfavourable outcome of the election petition gained momentum after President Mahama himself had claimed he won the 2012 election “cleanly and fairly” and that the Supreme Court would not have any choice than to re-affirm his supposed clean victory.

Apparently emboldened by the position taken by President Mahama, Stephen Atubiga stated among other things on Asempa FM that it would be "a bitter-sweet victory" for the NPP even if the petitioners won their case because "Ghana cannot contain all of us".

When he was called in respect of his comment by Adom FM at noon of last Thursday, “Adamant” Atubiga insisted he stood by what he had said. However, after the Supreme Court had ordered him to appear before it, he was all over on radio apologising for what he acknowledged was ‘irresponsible’ comment.

Source: thestatesmanonline

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Napo Jabs Prez Mahama Over Talk Tax

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Category: Business & Finance

Created on Wednesday, 03 July 2013 00:00

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Napo Jabs Prez Mahama Over Talk Tax

Debate in Parliament yesterday on the second reading of the Communication Service Tax Amendment Bill, 2013 to widen the tax net and impose more taxes on consumers, was characterised by strong arguments with some Minority members drawing President John Mahama into the debate for his position on the Communications Service Tax Bill introduced by the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The new bill seeks to impose a six-percent tax on the inter-connect calls alone which the Minority said was already being taxed and would therefore mean ‘double’ taxation and higher cost to users.

Quoting copiously from the official hansard of Parliament in March, 2008, the NPP MP for Manhyia South, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in a contribution to the debate, said President John Mahama who was then the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Bole Bamboi in the Fourth Parliament of the Fourth Republic had vehemently opposed the introduction of the communication service tax because he thought it was going to be a burden on poor consumers.

“Mr Speaker, quoting from the official hansard of Parliament, the MP for Bole Bamboi in 2008 when this bill was being debated in Parliament told the whole country that he was opposed to this tax because, according to him, the then government said it was going to put the tax into the running of the National Youth Employment Programme.”

He said President Mahama, as an MP, was emphatic to state that the communication industry was over-burdened with taxes and therefore introducing the communication service tax bill would be additional burden on consumers.

“Mr Speaker, the then MP for Bole-Bamboi said the NPP government was not being honest to introduce the bill to fund the NYEP and that if indeed the government was serious and honest it could have introduced a separate bill to fund the NYEP,” he said, stressing that the former MP who is now the head of the present NDC government has come back to Parliament asking parliamentarians to endorse more taxes in the communication industry.

He said it was highly insensitive for the government headed by President Mahama to burden Ghanaians with more taxes under the certificate of urgency, which meant the bill would have to be passed without delay.

The NPP MP for Old Tafo, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, who is a ranking member of the Finance Committee, said the bill should come with the supplementary budget because there was nothing urgent about it.

“Is it because the country is broke and the government is in a hurry to fill the revenue shortfall that the certificate of urgency was attached to the bill?” he queried.

The NPP MP for Sekondi, Papa Owusu Ankomah and NDC MP for Nadowli/Kaleo, Alban Bagbin who was then the Minority leader, warned Parliament to exercise caution in treating the bill as urgent because there were very ‘knotty’ areas in the bill which the Finance Committee could scrutinise so that the bill did not necessarily affect potency of the communication industry.

The Minority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, for his part, wondered whether the introduction of the bill under the certificate of urgency was an admission by the government that the country was indeed broke.

He said the same people including the Majority Leader, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, who was then the MP for Lawra/Nandom, NDC MP for Nadowli/Kaleo, Alban Bagbin and NDC MP for Tamale Central, Inusah Fuseini, now a cabinet minister who were opposed to the introduction of the bill are now championing certain amendments to the bill that would impose further taxes on consumers.

“Hon Alban Bagbin, then the Minority leader in Parliament described this bill as ‘a talk bill’ and now should we call this new bill as ‘country is broke bill’,” he indicated.

In the Finance Committee’s report itself, clause one of the amendments sought to impose a tax to be known as Communication Service Tax and that the tax is to be levied on electronic communication service providers.

Clause two provided for the tax to be paid together with the electronic communication service charge payable to the service provider by the user of the service.

According to the committee’s report, where the service is received from outside Ghana the tax is to be paid by the user who received the service.

By Thomas Fosu Jnr

Source: Thomas Fosu Jnr/D-Guide

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Pink Sheet Brouhaha Over...Hearing Ends Next Week?

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Wednesday, 03 July 2013 00:00

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Pink Sheet Brouhaha Over...Hearing Ends Next Week?

Lead Counsel for the Petitioners, Philip Addison on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court sitting on the Presidential Election Petition that the findings of the KPMG count of pink sheets filed by the petitioners vindicates the position of the petitioners who have maintained since the commencement of the trial that they filed 11,842 unique pink sheets.

{sidebar id=12 align=right}The hearings on Wednesday, which ended earlier than usual, saw an effective end to the pink sheet brouhaha on the number of exhibits filed by the petitioners which has delayed the court’s hearings severally as a result of numerous complaints from the respondents on supposed shortages in exhibits supplied to them.

Counsel Addison at the start of the day’s hearings mentioned to the court that several issues surrounding the KPMG report remained unresolved for which the court should make a decision regarding these issues.

He mentioned that although the KPMG representative, Mr. Amanoo Dodoo had told the court the unique count was 8,675 pink sheets, that could not be the case because 1,545 pink sheets had not been added to this unique count because according to the KPMG representative “one or two things” were unclear on the pink sheets.

Lawyer Addison proceeded to list the items which were used by KPMG to classify these sheets as illegible.

• NPN – No Polling Station Name: But Addison explained the polling station code could be used to identify these ‘irregularities’.

• NPC – No Polling Station Code: The polling station name could be used.

• UPN – Unclear Polling station Name: The polling station code could be used.

• UPC –Unclear Polling station Code: The polling station name could be used.

• CWA – Code without Alphabet: The polling station name could be used.

• LBAI – Low Ballot Accounting Information: This is not part of the remit of the referee.

At this point, Justice Baffoe Bonnie inquired from Counsel Addison if the pink sheets were rejected because all these identifiers were missing. Counsel Addison explained that that was not the case and that they were taken out if any one of these identifiers were missing. Indeed, Counsel Addison explained that 850 of these sheets clearly had polling station codes which were all listed in the report and was surprised those had also been left out since polling stations codes was the primary identifiers of polling stations.

At this point, Justice Baffoe Bonnie took a look at his copy of the KPMG report and expressed surprise himself at how some of the pink sheets had been classified as illegible and left out of the unique count and the various tests KPMG claimed to have run.

Counsel Philip Addison also explained that those identifiers or issues which were illegible on the various pink sheets could not be the problem of the petitioners and reminded the court that the pink sheet was produced by presiding officers of the Electoral Commission who filled the various portions such as polling station names, codes, etc. and thus if any of those were not clear, it could not be the fault of the petitioners.

Counsel Philip Addison stated that aside the 850 sheets which clearly had codes per the KPMG report, the petitioners had also through the use of other identifiers such as exhibit numbers, polling station names etc., been able to identify an additional 655 and said that from what had been identified in the 850 with codes and the 655 identified with other identifiers, the petitioners had found 1,291 unique sheets in the 1,545 classified as illegible by KPMG.

Counsel Addison stated that aside the issue of 1,545 which the court needed to make a decision on, was the 2876 sheets found in the President’s set but which were not in the Registrar’s set according to the KPMG report. He indicated that the petitioners on their own had been able to identify 871 unique pink sheets out of these 2,876 and that any count of unique sheets filed by the petitioners had to include these 871 which had clearly been proven to have been filed.

Counsel Addison stated that further as the petitioners had indicated earlier, 648 of the pink sheets used by the 1st and 3rd respondents in their cross examination of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia were not in the sets of either the registrar or the president of the panel and since it had properly been filed and was in evidence, it ought to be added to any unique count of pink sheets filed by the petitioners.

Counsel Philip Addison informed the court that when all the unique sheets in the various sets as he had listed are summed, it would come up to 11,485.

The petitioners had earlier suggested in their cross examination of the KPMG representative, Mr. Nii Amanoo Dodoo that if the respondents are made to declare fully what was served on them, the court would be able to find the remaining exhibits which number a few hundreds.

At this stage the various justices directed the petitioners that to move progress and ensure that the case comes to an end by next week, the petitioners should indicate all the number of unique pink sheets as had been shown in the KPMG report, in the set of the registrar and the president of the panel and those used in cross examination which were not in the sets counted by KPMG as they were also in the court’s records, in their addresses noting that the count had clearly proved that the petitioners even submitted more than 11,842 pink sheets.

Justice Sophia Adinyirah indicated that whether the respondents had a certain pink sheet or not would no longer be an issue in continuing the cross examination of Dr. Afari Gyan, Electoral Commissioner and that once those sheets had been captured by the KPMG report, the petitioners were free to cross examine on them.

The Petitioners are calling on the court to annul results in the December Presidential elections from 11,138 polling stations which were affected by various irregularities including over voting, voting without biometric verification, no signature of presiding officers and the occurrence of same serial numbers on more than one pink sheet.

Source: Communications Directorate, NPP/Ghana

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Asamoah Boateng Gives Evidence On Election Petition

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Tuesday, 02 July 2013 00:00

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Asamoah Boateng Gives Evidence On Election Petition

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The petitioner challenging the 2012 parliamentary election results in the Mfanstiman West Constituency told a Cape Coast High Court hearing the case that some presiding officers did not sign the declaration forms and some of the figures did not tally with those in words.

Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, who was the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate in the constituency, in the last polls, was led in evidence by Mr Egbert Faibille.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng told the court, presided over by Mr Justice James Benuyenah Benson that declaration sheets of 12 polling stations did not bear the signatures of the presiding officers.

He filed the petition against Mr Aquainas Tawiah-Quansah, the Member of Parliament for the constituency, over alleged malpractices, non-signing of pink sheets and other related matters.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng told the court that apart from the omission of names of some presiding officers and their signatures, some entries of dates and time on the pink sheets were not recorded.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng cited a station called CPB near Number One Asafo Post, that bore the presiding officer’s name as Christilove Quansah, but there was no signature, date and time, on the pink sheet.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng said whereas Mr Tawiah-Quansah, the first respondent in the petition, was credited with 390 votes, he the petitioner, obtained 152 out of the 535 total valid votes cast.

He told the court that Nsanfokuma Methodist Primary School Polling Station did not have any presiding officer, neither was there a signature, date and time on the pink sheet, adding that Mr Tawiah-Quansah was credited with 232 votes, whilst the 187 votes he obtained increased by a vote to read as 188 on the face of the sheet.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng said the Anomabo Polling Station whose Code Number was B040701, did not bear the name of any presiding officer, neither was there a signature, date and time, adding that while Mr Tawiah-Quansah obtained 239 votes, he had 124 votes to his credit.

The petitioner said at the Anomabo One Catholic Primary School Polling Station, the pink sheet bore the name of Mr Daniel Evans as its presiding officer, and did not have a signature, time and date of entry, Mr Tawiah-Quansah had 348 votes to his credit while he obtained 323 votes.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng said at the Anomabo Catholic ‘Two’ Primary School where there was no presiding officer at post, with no signature, date and time, the first respondent had 368 while he the petitioner obtained 337 votes in his name.

The petitioner named Mankessim Anglican JHS, Edumadzi M/A JHS, Mankessim One and Two M/A JHS, Eduadze M/A Primary and Anomabo Post Office as other polling stations where alleged election malpractices were recorded.

The case has been adjourned to Thursday, July 18.

Source: GNA

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