2016 polls: I didn’t handle party cash – Ofosu-Ampofo

The Director of Elections for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, has said neither he nor the NDC’s elections directorate received money meant for the NDC’s polling agents in last year’s elections.

According to him, assertions and insinuations in an article written by the Daily Post, a pro-NDC newspaper, on Thursday March 16 that cash meant for the upkeep of the polling agents did not reach their final destinations and partly accounted for the party’s defeat in the polls.

Portions of the news report said: “The Daily Post's own enquirers and investigations have revealed that some senior members of the FEC (Functional Executive Committee) constantly came for various sums of money from the President for campaign activities which he gave them without let or hindrance.

While receiving funds from President Mahama, they also took delivery of hundreds of thousands of T-shirts from his wife, Mrs Lordina Mahama. The T-shirts and other party paraphernalia were her personal contribution to the campaign effort.

“While the president released cash, donated to him by his financiers, to the two FEC executives at various stages of the campaign, they never informed him even once of the billions of cedis businesses donated to the party through them. The sources told this paper that on one occasion, a financier of the party came to the former President with cash for the party. The former president directed him to the party headquarters. The businessman proceeded to the party headquarters to make the donation, but did not tell the two key members who received the monies he had been to President John Mahama's house first. The very evening, the two sent for monies from the former President for campaign activities.

“And they received it. Investigations by this paper revealed that the FEC officials and another senior members of the party in charge of elections brought a budget of over GHS11.6 million (GHS116billion) to the president to be paid to the party's polling agents. They received the money. Each polling agent was to receive GHS200, but the agents never received these monies.”

Reacting to this report in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM on Friday 17 March, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said: “Yesterday Daily Post wrote an article and indicated that the ex-President was going to name some FEC members and members of the Executives who received money from him. They made a very specific statement that with the polling agents’ money, Kofi Adams and one senior person in the party office in charge of elections received the party cash, yet the money did not reach the agents. I am the Director of Elections for the NDC, and so when you make such a statement without mentioning names but only cast insinuations to the effect that a senior member in charge of elections was responsible, I will presume you are making an accusation against me, and so I have every right to explain and set the record straight.

“To set the record straight as Director of Elections, I did not handle election directorate money, monies meant for party agents did no go through me. The monies were sent straight to the regions for onward transmission to the constituencies and the polling stations. The election directorate was not in charge of money. I did not personally handle any money. The system was such that there was a budget and the money was sent directly to the regions and so if anybody is making such statements, they should crosscheck their facts to know that Ofosu-Ampofo as director of elections for the NDC and my office as election directorate we did not handle party funds.”