Over 13,000 pink sheets can’t vindicate NPP – Abraham Amaliba asserts

The NPP is not yet out of the hook, a member of the NDC legal team has declared, cautioning the NPP not to jubilate yet in the face of a draft report by the KPMG pointing to over 13,000 pink sheets, stressing the latest figure comes with lots of begging questions.

Petitioners in the ongoing Supreme Court hearing of the election petition claimed they filed 11,842 pink sheets, but the figure has come under strong attack from the respondents who argued that the figure is far below what has been mentioned in court. In fact, the first and second respondents said they received less than 8,000 pink sheets.

A member of the NPP legal team, Gloria Akuffo, has suggested that the 13,000 plus pink sheets, more or less vindicate their claim that over 11,000 pink sheets were filed at the court’s registry.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Top Story, Madam Akuffo stated that the petitioners have “consistently” relied on 11,842, which was reviewed to 11,138.

But if the respondents claim they have not been served the 11,000 plus, according Gloria Akuffo, that should not [be] the burden of respondents, explaining “their case is that they have not been served, that is quite distinguishable from we have not been filed”.

“The KPMG draft report indicates that we have not only filed what we are relying on, we have actually over supplied,” she stated.

But Abraham Amaliba, a member of the NDC legal team, responded that the oversupplied aspect in itself is problematic.

“They are thinking that because it is 13,000 plus it is uhuru (freedom) for them, no! Clearly we need an explanation: if it is 11,000 plus and we said we did not receive all, how much more now it is 13,000 plus?”

But he was confident the final report of KPMG will put matters to rest.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended cross-examination on the contentious issue and directed parties to wait for the outcome of the KPMG pink sheets audit.

It was a controversial day at the Supreme Court today following disagreements between petitioners and all three respondents over alleged missing documents in evidence.

Lawyers for the NDC, President John Mahama and the Electoral Commission all pointed to some discrepancies between filed pink sheets in possession of the judges and the ones they have.

They pointed to a deliberate agenda to possibly mislead the court.

The judges themselves had many questions about the concern expressed by the respondents, eventually asking the lawyer for the petitioners to suspend his cross-examination of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission on the contentious issues.