Error on ballot papers due to NPP's negligence – NDC

The main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) was negligent as far as its monitoring of the printing of error-riddled ballot papers for the parliamentary poll in the Ashanti Region is concerned, the Elections Director of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, has said.

The NPP has rejected the ballot papers because its initials were not captured on them as was done for all the other parties in the contest. Instead, only its logo was captured on the paper.

Speaking on the matter on Class91.3FM’s 505 news programme with Emefa Apawu on Tuesday, Mr Ofosu Ampofo said: “Didn’t they see it when the samples were printed before they went into mass production? What were they doing? What were their monitors doing? If through their negligence they didn’t present the right thing, why should the country go and bear the cost of this expenditure?

The EC, in a statement issued by Eric Kofi Dzakpasu, Head of Communications, denied the existence of errors on the printout. It said: “Attention has been drawn to reports in sections of the media suggesting that the Commission had printed a ‘wrong logo’ for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on the parliamentary ballot sheets. We would like to place on the record that the claim is entirely inaccurate.

Below are the facts:

1. All political parties participating in this year’s elections worked closely with the Commission’s Directorate of Electoral Services to agree on the acceptable logo for their parties to be printed on the Notice of Polls and the ballot sheets.

2. For the parliamentary notice of polls and ballot sheets, the New Patriotic Party specifically indicated their satisfaction with the logo as processed for printing.

3. During the printing process, not only did the party have its representatives at the printing houses at all material times, high-ranking officers of the party visited the printing houses regularly to monitor the process. At no point did they raise any objections about the NPP’s logo as it was being printed.

4. For the avoidance of doubt, we have added the NPP’s official logo as it appears on the party’s letterheads. It is clear from the pictures that the party uses these two versions of their logo interchangeably. Both do not include the party’s acronym as now being claimed.

5. We would like to further place on the record that it is only for the presidential ballot that the NPP has specifically requested that its acronym be added to the logo, and that has been done.

6. Therefore, it cannot be accurate that the Commission committed any design or printing errors as being speculated or claimed.”

The NPP has, however, come out to say that it did not give the go-ahead for the use of the logo.