KPMG Exposed

{sidebar id=11 align=right}Aside the ongoing Presidential Election Petition being an unprecedented and landmark case in the annals of our country’s democratic history it is obvious that this case, by the time a verdict is received, would have redefined the way we do our politics and conduct our elections. Not only would this case redefine our politics but it obvious that this case has already redefined and exposed various institutions which hitherto were held in some high repute.

One of such institutions which have obviously been exposed badly is the Ghana branch of International Auditing and Accounting Firm, KPMG.

To sink KPMG finally was the decision of the Supreme Court on Monday ignoring both the firm’s final report on the count of pink sheets filed by the petitioners and the firm’s representative, Nii Amanor Dodoo's surprising insistence that the court should rely on only 8,675 pink sheets as those filed by the petitioners and agreeing with the petitioners that they had enough to prove that much more that 11,000 unique pink sheets was filed. But we will return to the math later.

KPMG the highly reputed market leader in accounting and auditing, at least until their disappointing show at the Supreme Cour,t was introduced into the business of determining who really won the December Presidential Elections when after several complaints from the respondents on the number of pink sheets filed by the petitioners. The court agreed and ordered that it was necessary to do a count of the pink sheets filed by the petitioners to settle the matter and stop the little issue of pink sheet mislabeling etc. from bugging and unnecessarily delaying the case.

This decision on hindsight seems to be the biggest blessing for the petitioners in the case so far.

When the court finally agreed to take this much needed step, KPMG was settled upon by consensus of the parties (apparently after first being mentioned by Lawyers for the NDC) as the best suited to undertake the task in this historic case and the belief immediately was that the firm had much more competence and professionalism to faithfully report to the court its findings on the pink sheets. KPMG’s name immediately had become engraved in Ghanaian judicial and election history.

It however didn’t take more than 24 hours after KPMG began its work for worrying signals to emerge.

Just a day after the count began, lawyers of the respondents filed into court angrily demanding various directives from the court including a stop of the process as according to them some unseen hands had been able to compromise the exhibits in the custody of the Supreme Court despite 24 hour round the clock maximum protection of the premises by National Security, Police and possibly footsoldiers of the ruling party as well as 24 hour round the clock CCTV surveillance of the Supreme Court strong room where the exhibits were kept.

In their presentations the lawyers of John Mahama and the NDC, Tony Lithur and Tsatsu Tsikata probably forgetful, dropped hints of secret meetings and collaborative undertakings they had had with KPMG and certain secret details passed to them by KPMG.

Both of these lawyers mentioned a certain secret meeting they had had with representatives of the supposed to be professional firm a day before their showing in court while Tsatsu Tsikata specifically dropped hints about a count of the boxes in the custody of the President of the Panel, Justice William Atuguba undertaking by KPMG which the respectable Judge was not even aware of and indicating that KPMG would in a matter of hours inform the Judge of the findings of that secret box count.

The red signs immediately appeared all over the count of KPMG and specifically the firm’s whole professionalism and integrity. Could a firm that had thrown all principles of professionalism too early in the day be still trusted to deliver an honest account of their findings, was the question which now had to be answered.

But KPMG obviously showed that they were in no eagerness to correct the early misconceptions their secret dealings with the respondents had thrown up.

Though KPMG was primarily tasked to inform the court on how many unique pink sheets the petitioners had filed, KPMG completed its work without doing this, very strangely. KPMG did not even add the unique set of pink sheets found in the President’s set which were not in the registrar’s set, to indicate at least the unique count in the set of the president of the panel and the registrar.

Further, they set aside a whole 1,545 pink sheets with various ridiculous remarks and sought to have them set aside by the court. More bizarre is the fact that 850 of these pink sheets clearly had polling station codes which are the primary identifiers of a polling station. Others were set aside because they had no ballot accounting information, something which is totally not the fault of the petitioners who filed the sheets and interestingly part of the petitioners’ case as showing the sort of irregularities which characterized the last election.

When KPMG submitted its draft report, the petitioners meticulously analyzed the report and noted all the essential matters KPMG had missed. According to the representative of the KPMG while being cross examined, the petitioners even went all the way into providing annexures of the lists of unique pink sheets they had found in the president’s set which were not in the registrar’s set, the number of pink sheets they had identified in the 1,545 list KPMG claimed were unclear and the unique pink sheets in them among others.

KPMG upon seeing the meticulous work done by the petitioners immediately decided it was not in ‘their’ interest to attach the comments of the petitioners into their final report and discarded the report totally even though they had initially agreed with all the parties that their comments would be factored into the final report.

In court and while being cross examined by the counsel for the petitioners, the representative of KPMG, Nii Amanor Dodoo was clearly exposed as being dishonest or at least not knowing what he and the firm were about. He flip flapped on several issues and ended confusing the whole nation on the work KPMG had done.

When the respondents took the mantle of cross examination however, Mr. Amanor Dodoo who looked very comfortable then surprisingly insisted on more than a dozen times that the court should only deal with 8,675 pink sheets they claimed were unique in the registrar’s set. This number excluded the unique pink sheets in the president of the panel’s set which were not in the registrar’s set and the unique pink sheets which could be easily identified in the 1,545 they had set aside which had all been listed in their own report.

At this time, no one needed a soothsayer to know that KPMG was very actively collaborating to get the petitioners numbers slashed.

However, much has been said in the court since then. The court since then has ruled that the KPMG report is auxiliary which has clearly devalued the significance of the work undertaken by KPMG and most importantly, the court ruled on Monday that they would factor all the pink sheets in the set of the president of the panel but not in the registrar’s set, the unique pink sheets in the list of 1,545 KPMG said were unclear as well as the pink sheets used by the respondents which were not in either the set of the registrar or the president of the panel.

Now the math. KPMG claimed there were 8,675 unique pink sheets in the set of the registrar. This now has to be added to the 833 pink sheets found in the president of the panel but not in the registrar’s set and the uniquely identified 1,234 in the list of 1545 KPMG claimed were blank and the 648 pink sheets used by the respondents in their cross examination of 2ndPetitioner not in either the set of the registrar or the president of the panel, bringing the number clearly to over 11,000.

The petitioners insist they submitted 11,842 pink sheets to the court though they are now relying on only 11,138 of those to make their case and from the available evidence of clear mix ups in the service arising from the work of the registry, it is clear that if indeed the Court had time and undertook a count of all the exhibits in the custody of more judges or if even the respondents had earlier been mandated to list the exhibits they received, the petitioners’ 11,842 pink sheets filed would clearly have been established.

From: Mensah, Kwasi Osei

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Akufo-Addo beats Mills in Synovate Poll

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, will beat his main contender and incumbent President John Evans Atta Mills if elections were held today, according to the latest Synovate Ghana opinion poll.

The report said Nana Akufo-Addo will poll 44% ahead of President Mills, who polled 36% from about 2000 Ghanaians interviewed.

The report also pegs the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) leader, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, at 8% to be trailed by the People’s National Convention (PNC) leader, Hassan Ayariga with 1% on the assumption that presidential elections are held in Ghana today.

It outlined that Nana Akufo-Addo won in six out of the 10 regions, while President Mills won the other four. In their strongholds, the two main presidential contenders won. President Mills bagged 76 percent in the Volta Region as against Nana Addo’s 17, but in the Ashanti Region, President Mills had 22 as against 73 percent for Akufo-Addo.

The poll also concluded that 27% of the over 2000 Ghanaians interviewed contends that the economy is in a very poor state.

The Greater Accra, Central, Western and Brong Ahafo regions were christened as swing areas where Akufo-Addo recorded impressive results with the Central region going the way of the NDC.

Source: Citifmonline

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New constituencies out; Ashanti increases by 8, Volta, 4

{sidebar id=11 align=right}Joy News has intercepted the breakdown of new constituencies created by the Electoral Commission.   

The EC chair met with Members of Parliament during which he released the new constituencies amidst some contestations from the Minority.

Dr Afari Gyan said the new constituencies, 45 were created using a formula which will not discriminate against any region.

Per the release the number of constituencies in the Ashanti Region has increased from 39 to 47. Volta Region increases from 22 to 26 the same as Western Region.

Central Region increased from 19 to 23, Eastern Region increased by five more constituencies from 28-33 whilst that of the Greater Accra Region increased from 27-34.

In the Upper East two more constituencies have been created, putting the figure at 15, with the figure for Upper West Region increasing by one from 10-11.

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The Northern Region increased from 26-31 with the Brong Ahafo also experiencing an increase of five constituencies from 24-29.

Figures gleaned from EC sources put total number of registered voters to 13,628,817.

Over one million of the total number of registered votes do not have valid codes, Joy News' Sammy Darko has learnt, with the EC promising to validate the figure in the coming days.

The total figure will however increase after the EC conducts the biometric registration exercise in Akuse.

Akuse was exempted from the exercise due to legal tussle over whether the EC had the mandate to bring Akuse under Greater Accra Region. Per a Supreme Court ruling, Akuse should still remain under the Eastern Region.

Joy News' Sammy Darko reported the meeting with Afari Gyan was smooth but not without some contestations by the Minority.

According to him, the Minority demanded to know what permutation went into the creation of the new constituencies.

Explaining the formula used, Dr Afari Gyan said the formula puts the population of Ghana at nine with one land mass. The EC therefore divided each region’s population by nine, a strategy he said proved reliable and equitable.

Dr Afari Gyan also stated that the EC has made adequate provision for enough verification machines to be provided at all polling centres, adding about 50 per cent of funds have been made available by government for the project.

From: Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com

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Two sue electoral commission over new constituencies

{sidebar id=11 align=right}Two Ghanaians have filed a writ at the Supreme Court to prevent the Electoral Commission from announcing new constituencies.

They are Messrs Richard Odoom Bortieh and Daniel Quaye, both from the Krowor Constituency in the Greater Accra Region.

A former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Ayikoi Otoo, who is counsel for the plaintiffs, graphic.com.gh that the EC did not follow the letter of the Constitution in creating the new constituencies.

He said his clients were of the conviction that the EC did not follow due process in creating the new constituencies.

He explained that it was on that basis that his clients had filed the writ at the Supreme Court for interpretation of the Constitutional provisions mandating the Commission to create constitutions.

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The EC, in line with the Constitution, has prompted Parliament of its decision to create 45 more constituencies, following the government’s creation of new districts.

If carried through, the total number of constituencies will increase from the present 230 to 275.

Mr Otoo said the Supreme Court was expected to give directions on the matter.

He said the EC, in creating the new constituencies, failed to look at the population quota as enshrined in Article 47(3) of the Constitution.

“Article 47(3) provides that the boundaries of each constituency shall be such that the number of inhabitants in the constituency is as nearly as possible equal to the population quota,” he quoted, adding “it is the view of the plaintiffs that the EC has not been taking the population quota into consideration.”

Mr Otoo explained further that by virtue of the EC’s flawed action, the Greater Accra, which has its population increasing to over 4 million- with the announcement of the new census figures- does not have a commensurate increase in the number of constituencies.

The Greater Accra Region currently has 27 constituencies.

“Now after the population census has been published, the figures are clear that the Greater Accra is leading with over four million people, having overtaken the Ashanti Region and yet Greater Accra, looking at the new constituencies, is just going to get about seven constituencies extra, which is just the same as Northern Region is going to get,” he argued.

According to him, the EC was only looking at boundaries, means of communications, geographical features of a particular area as spelt out rather than the supreme condition of the population size for a constituency to be created.

“It seems to us that the Commission has over the years been looking at the exceptions in the law rather than the mandatory population census,” he said

Source: Daily Graphic

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