NPP ‘360 U-TURN’ EXPOSED

Records Show party Proposed E-Transmission of Votes TO EC
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has revealed that the NPP, under the leadership of the late Jake Obitsebi Lamptey proposed the electronic transmission of results to the EC after the 2012 election petition case.

According to the party, the NPP’s claims that the Electoral Commission (EC) single-handedly decided to contract some IT firms to transmit the December election scores are untrue.

The NPP has said it is opposed to the decision by the election management body to transmit results electronically during the December 7 polls. Its campaign manager Peter Mac Manu in a statement accused the EC of taking a unilateral decision on the matter without consulting the political parties.

Addressing Journalists at a press conference at the NDC headquarters in Accra Wednesday August 3, the NDC general secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia said “…What the EC did not disclose is the fact that the whole idea of the E-transmission of Results was a proposal from none other than the NPP which was exhaustingly debated and accepted by the Committee before approval by IPAC and finally accepted by the Electoral Commission”.

Adducing evidence to buttress his claims, general Mosquito, as Nketia is also known, cited a correspondence between the late NPP chairman and IPAC.

“…The commission may adopt the use of satelite transmission of results to the national tallying center pending the receipt of pinksheet from the regions.In this regard the EC should consider procuring handheld scanners to scan and send all pink sheets to Accra before collation and receipt of hard copies,” the document noted.

Angered by NPP’s conduct over the matter, Nketia asked “…Is it not surprising that the NPP is kicking against the E-transmission and blaming its introduction on EC without notice or involvement of political parties?”

He warned that the posturing of the NPP has the potential of “subverting Ghana’s peaceful march towards a free, fair and transparent election in December this year.”

He said the NPP has gained notoriety for kicking against decisions taken at the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) of the Electoral Commission (EC), a committee the NPP is part of, hence should be ignored on the matter of the electronic transmission of election results in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said.

Siding with the EC that the NPP was aware of the decision, Mr Asiedu Nketia, who is the representative of the NDC at IPAC, said the NPP was fully aware of the decision to transmit the results electronically because the decision came up at an IPAC meeting.

He said: “NPP has now gained notoriety for kicking against decisions of IPAC which they were part of. We [NDC] wish to tell the NPP in plain language that they should let their ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and ‘no’ be ‘no’ in order to save the little remaining integrity left in that disorganised and disintegrated party. They should also know that discerning Ghanaians are getting impatient with their double standards and if they don’t mend their ways, the nation will move on with or without them.”

BAWUMIA’S ALLEGATON THAT REGISTRATION KITS WERE SMUGLED FROM VOLTA REGION TO TOGO TO REGISTER FOREIGNERS:
Ladies and gentlemen,

We in the NDC find it extremely difficult to comprehend that it is the same Dr. Bawumia who was accusing NDC operatives of influencing the EC officials to cross over the border with biometric registration kits will now be implicated in an Exhibition scandal where he the selfsame Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is alleged to have influenced EC officials to illegally move the verification kits to his house!! Wonders they say will never end!!

E-TRANSMISSION OF RESULTS

Perhaps the most shocking attitude of the NPP is their latest decision to kick against the electronic transmission of the results of the Presidential Elections. I read the Electoral Commission’s statement tracing the decision to transmit the result to the report of the Electoral Reform Committee which was signed by the NPP. That in my view is not enough. What the EC did not disclose is the fact that the whole idea of the E-transmission of Results was a proposal from none other than the NPP which was exhaustively debated and accepted by the Committee before approval by IPAC and finally accepted by the Electoral Commission.

In a document titled “TOWARDS REFORMING GHANA’S FUTURE ELECTIONS” submitted to the EC under a cover letter with a heading “NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY REFORM PROPOSALS” signed by their then National Chairman, Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey and addressed to the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, the NPP proposed at page 10 paragraph 6 as follows:

“The Commission may adopt the use of satellite transmission of results to the National Tallying Centre pending the receipt of pink sheets from the regions. In this regard the EC should consider procuring handheld scanners to scan and send all pink sheets to Accra before collation and receipt of hard copies”

Is it not surprising that the NPP is kicking against the E-transmission and blaming its introduction on EC without notice or involvement of political parties?

In the same Document the NPP states in paragraph 1.2(1) page 5 that “The Party recommends that decisions at IPAC ought to form part of the body of constitutional instruments which will govern the conduct of elections in this country”. Yet, NPP has now gained notoriety for kicking against decisions of IPAC which they were part of.

In conclusion, we wish to tell the NPP that they should let their “YES” be “YES” and “NO” be “NO” in order to save the little remaining integrity left in that disorganized and disintegrated party. They should also know that discerning Ghanaians are getting impatient with their double standards and if they do not mend their ways the nation will move-on with or without them

It will be recalled that the campaign manager of the NPP in this year’s elections, Mr Peter Mac Manu, recently accused the EC of not adequately briefing the NPP about the e-transmission process.

Mr Mac Manu had said: “No political party or civil society organization has received invitation from the EC to attend the demonstration [of the transmission process].”

He said on Sunday July 31 that the EC had not been able to convince the country why it intended to conduct e-transmission of poll results in December. “First, there is no law which gives the EC the mandate to electronically transmit results, nothing in the law before parliament now. C.I. 94 makes mention of it. Also, the law talks about the EC receiving all the collated results from the Statement of Poll and Declaration of Results (pink sheets) signed by party agents at the constituency level, and the expectation is that they will be brought to the national collation centre before the winner of the presidential race will be declared,” he said.

But the election management body rejected the claims of Mr Mac Manu, indicating that the party was adequately informed about the decision to transmit the result electronically.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ransford Gyampo a senior lecturer at the Political Science Department, University of Ghana, has described the NPP’s opposition to the electronic results transmission as preposterous.

He said he could not fathom where “this (NPP’s opposition) is coming from as far as I am concerned the major parties were given representations at the Electoral Reform Committee”, saying the claims are unfair to Ghanaian’s.