General News of Thursday, 18 April 2013
Source: citifmonline
General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, otherwise known as Sir John has refuted allegations that Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s regular referencing of documents in court was indicative of the NPP’s unpreparedness for the hearing.
The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Johnson Asiedu Nketia, in an earlier interview had alleged that Dr Bawumia was not prepared for the hearing and could have smuggled in some documents during the recess.
Sir John, however, in an interview on Eyewitness News, stated that the rules of the court did not forbid a witness from making reference to documents.
“The rules of the court allow witnesses to be able to refresh their memories on documents they intend to rely on especially when you have evidence of this magnitude, so I don’t think there was a problem with Dr Bawumia to look and refer to the paper especially when the court saw nothing wrong with it.
What is more important is the fact that Dr Bawumia articulated clearly that where we have the same serial numbers was where most of the malpractices occurred so it is worrying if you have some electoral officials behaving that way,” he said.
Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie expressed his optimism about the rest of the hearings saying: “Tomorrow he [Bawumia] will look at that of John Mahama’s case, NDC’s case and the EC’s case and I am happy that by the end of the day, Ghanaians will have no doubts in their minds that indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo ought to have been declared the winner of the elections,” he added.