Ensure pink sheets are intact in spite of fire – Sammy Awuku tells EC

Deputy Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP),Samuel Awuku has warned the Electoral Commission (EC) not to use the fire outbreak at its IT department as an alibi to tamper with evidence pertaining to the ongoing presidential election petition before the Supreme Court.

He said it will be unthinkable for the EC to tell the court that the pink sheets needed to adjudicate the NPP challenge of the 2012 election were burnt in the fire.

One of the rooms in the IT department of the Commission was on Friday gutted by fire but the timely intervention of the Ghana National Fire Service and staff of the EC prevented the fire from spreading to other departments.

According the EC, apart from the an air conditioner nothing significant was burnt.

However, Sammy Awuku baffled by the unfortunate incident on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Friday suspected 'arson'.

He contended that if the EC is found to have tampered with any pink sheets needed as evidence in court, "it would be in contempt" of court.

Sammy Awuku posited that if the fire outbreak at the IT department where he claimed figures of the December elections are kept is meant to delay the case, then it will be an exercise in futility.

"It will be in the interest of the Electoral Commission to ensure that not even their districts, regional or headquarters is gutted by fire [because] Ghanaians will not take that for an answer," he opined.

He appealed to NPP members not to worry about the development since "any attempt to temper with the pink sheets will go against the EC".

Sammy Awuku said the EC owes it a duty to ensure that pieces of evidence needed in the court case are intact.