Opinions of Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Columnist: Jackson, Margaret
By Margaret Jackson
May 20, 2013
When the Judicial Secretary of the Supreme Court (SC) openly rejected the gesture of the National Security in helping to protect the pink sheets which was to be counted by the KPMG, many people smelt rat.
Many wondered why the Judicial Secretary of the SC will rebuff the National Security from protecting the pink sheets when it is this same outfit which provides top notch security to members of the Supreme Court.
But the fears of many people were confirmed yesterday when the counting of the pink sheets was suspended abruptly when the respondents in the SC challenge of the 2012 Presidential results realized that the boxes with the pink sheets exhibits have increased from 10 to 17.
Another issue which called for the suspension of the counting which was ordered by the SC was the detection that ranges in the exhibit boxes were totally different from the ranges given to the SC and the respondents when the petitioners filed the affidavits.
And when the Electoral Commission (EC) officials together with the NDC and President Mahama’s team raised hell at the SC premises where the counting was to take place, observers claimed the Registrar was totally confused and was heard murmuring inaudibly to himself.
According to sources close to the EC, President Mahama and the NDC, they received 10 boxes each of the “P” Series exhibits from the NPP when they filed their affidavits with the SC.
Therefore, when officials of the EC, President Mahama and the NDC went to witness the counting of the pink sheets by KPMG, the accounting firm tasked by the SC to count the sheets to determine if the total was 11,842 or not, they were expecting 10 boxes of the “P” series exhibits.
But to their amazement, the boxes have ballooned from 10 to 17 which led them to protest vehemently.
In order to establish the veracity of what the officials representing President Mahama, the EC and the NDC were saying, the KPMG officials led all the officials witnessing the counting to the offices of Justice William Atuguba who also had 10 boxes of the “P” series exhibits.
It must be stressed that Justice Atuguba asked all the parties to use his exhibits as the benchmark to ensure that all the boxes and the ranges were accurate. My sources claim that when the KPMG officials checked Justice Atuguba’s exhibits they found that it was also 10 boxes and that the exhibits range on those boxes were the same as that of the EC, President Mahama and the NDC.
The question which therefore comes to mind is who added the extra 7 boxes and changed the ranges? Since the Registrar of the SC has started shivering, your guess could be good as mine.
It would be recalled that the SC requested KPMG to count the pink sheets following a request by the counsel of the third respondents, Mr Tsatsu Tsikata that they received far less than 11,842 pink sheet exhibits deposed by the three petitioners of the case.
According to the respondents, the pinks sheets submitted by the petitioners are inundated with duplicates, triplicates and quadruplicates, thereby making it far less than 11,842 if the dupes are backed out.
However, the petitioners ably aided by Dr Mahamadu Bawumia consistently maintained that the number of the pink sheets they submitted adds up to 11,842. I am reliably informed that the SC justices will be meeting today to determine the next line of action following this bombshell.
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