By Margaret Jackson

May 21, 2013

Just as the auditing of the pink sheets under contention was about to start on Monday May 20, it emerged that some invisible hands had played a fast one at the Supreme Court (SC). The 24 boxes of exhibits suddenly ballooned to 31.

It must however be stressed that out of the original 24 boxes sent to the SC by the NPP with copies given to all the parties involved in the electoral challenge of the 2012 Presidential Election, there were 10 boxes labelled as “P” Series. It was this “P” Series that ballooned to 17, thus bringing the total number of boxes to 31.

According to Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, lead counsel of the NDC, representatives of all the parties in the case met last week Thursday and did a pre-audit which determined that the total number of exhibit boxes to be audited by the KPMG was 24.

But on Monday, when KPMG, the audit firm that has been mandated by the SC to count the pink sheets submitted by the NPP in their affidavits started with the count, the respondents sounded the alarm bells when they found out that someone has dribbled his/her way to add more boxes of pink sheets to the ones at the SC. This degenerated into a big controversy leading to the suspension of the counting by KPMG.

This issue was brought to the attention of the SC during its resumed sitting on Tuesday, and after some submissions by all the parties, the SC came back from recess and ruled that KPMG should resume the auditing of the 24 boxes and also the 7 dubious boxes being contested by the respondents.

The SC however directed the committee supervising the audit to write its final report by incorporating all the concerns raised by the respondents concerning the 7 additional boxes of exhibits which has metamorphosed into the Supreme Court premises.

Now the big question is who is telling the truth? Is it the NDC or the NPP? As the KPMG resumes the audit, one thing that will agitate the minds of all Ghanaians is which of the parties involved in the case would have benefitted from the inclusion of the 7 “ghost” boxes.

The NDC has sought to discount claims that the NPP submitted 11,842 pink sheets to buttress their case which led the SC to order the audit of the pink sheets. According to the NDC the number of pink sheets submitted by the NPP was far less than they are claiming.

Therefore, if the NDC is trying to play mischief they will rather seek to reduce the number of exhibit boxes at the Supreme Court to help their contention that the pink sheets numbers do not add up. If that is the case, one would think that it will not be beneficial for the NDC to do anything to beef up the number of boxes at the SC.

On the other hand, if there is any party that will gain from the increase in the number of exhibit boxes at the SC, it is in doubt the NPP. There have been charges that their numbers don’t add up and is full of dupes, triples and quads, therefore, if they know for a fact that, their numbers do not add up, they are the ones to gain if the exhibit boxes increase.

The issue of the increase in the number of exhibit boxes is surely criminal and the SC justices should constitute an immediate investigation into who did that. The Registrar at the SC should be the first suspect since he took custody of the exhibits; therefore, if the boxes have increased and the labelling also changed, he should be able to answer some questions.

The way we heard that the Registrar was shivering all over when confronted speaks volumes. Surely someone tried to play a fast one but the eagle eyes of the NDC did not allow it to slip through. This case has reached a stage where desperate characters may attempt to adopt desperate tactics to achieve desperate goals.

magjackson80@yahoo.com http://majjacks80.blogspot.com