Article by Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko
Recent statements by a Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr David Adenze Kanga, only add to the confusion on what the Electoral Commission sees as the way forward to enhancing significantly the integrity of Ghana’s electoral system which was perilously tested in the December 2008 general elections.
During the workshop organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) for some selected civil society organisations, leaders of political parties, religious leaders, journalists and development partners on the theme, “The survival of multi-party democracy and politics of accommodation and tolerance”, Mr Kanga expressed, what we see as a very worrying scepticism about the viability of Ghana adopting a biometric voter registration system and an electronic voting system.
The Daily Graphic of Thursday, 15 October read: “Regarding the biometric system of registration and voting, Mr Kanga said the country should tread cautiously concerning voting, in order not to throw off the transparency tenets in the present voting system.”
He explained that “with the electronic voting, the electorate would be given receipts from the machine indicating that they had voted and after the process the machine would indicate how many votes each candidate received. With this process against the backdrop of the fact that the Ghanaian electorate was accustomed to the counting of ballots in their presence, the ordinary voter would not appreciate how the machine arrived at the final figures for each candidate.”
Such selective comments do not inform the public fully on the respective weight that should be put on the pros and cons of both electronic voting and paper balloting. It is with this in mind that the Danquah Institute is holding a seminar on December 7, 2009 exclusively devoted to the viability of adopting a biometric voter register and/or electronic voting for Ghana in 2012. The purpose of the conference is to interrogate deeper the issues and concerns about e-voting. (DI will hold a press conference on Monday, 9 November on its ‘National Conference on the Viability of Electronic Voting in Ghana’).
The sum total of international research shows that e-voting offers potential for voting and election management that is an improvement over ballot paper voting or non-biometric voter registration. For Ghana, that technological leap could be the defence weapon against the explosion of electoral violence in the future, which could ultimately deal a fatal blow to the entire democratic experiment here in Ghana and with continental consequences.
On Tuesday, 12 May, a forum was organised by the Electoral Commission in collaboration with KAB Governance Consult and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), under the theme “Safeguarding the Integrity of the Ballot Project”. What could only be described as a historical commitment was made that day. At the Akosombo gathering, Ghana’s main political parties endorsed the adoption of a Biometric Voter Register as the best way to guarantee a credible database of eligible voters. In a communiqué, all the seven political parties (including NDC, NPP, CPP, PNC and DFP) in attendance, in their endorsement stated: “This is very necessary to deal authoritatively with practices of multiple voting and impersonation that tend to undermine public confidence in declared election results.”
Ref: http://news.myjoyonline.com/politics/200905/30029.asp.
There is a very strong case for biometric-based credentialing solution for Ghana’s Voter Registration Project. Not long after the 2008 elections, the Danquah Institute started to advocate for the consideration of e-voting. Shortly afterwards, the Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, stated that the EC was looking to adopt a biometric system of registering voters prior to the next polls, but will stop short of implementing electronic voting for election day.
Delivering the CDD-Ghana 5th Kronti ne Akwamu lecture on ‘The Challenges to Conducting Free and Fair Elections in Emerging African Democracies: The Case of Ghana.’, Dr Afari-Gyan stated in response to a question by this author, the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute: “The Commission is considering biometric registration of voters but as for biometric voting, I don't think the country is ready for it. If we do, I believe some people will start asking whether the Castle has not programmed the machines with some figures to their advantage.”
Again, on Wednesday, 18 March, 2009, Dr. Afari-Gyan announced on radio that a completely new voter registration exercise will take place to compile a new credible database for the 2012 general elections. The exercise will employ the best of technologies, including the use of biometric registration to beat fraudsters who attempt to exploit the voting exercise to their advantage. Dr. Afari-Gyan was the guest of Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show. Conceding that Ghana was lagging behind in the use of technologies in the electoral process, he said any new improvements in the system will have to include the best technologies, including biometric systems that will beat the fraudsters. See and listen via: http://news.myjoyonline.com/politics/200903/27689.asp.
We cannot, as a nation, dismiss without the benefit of a full domestic interrogation the viability of electronic voting. Just as allegations such as the EC conspiring with the incumbent government in 2008 to rig the elections did not perturb the Commission, so should we not allow predictable allegations such as “the Castle programming the machines” to stop us from considering the suitability of that option. Ghana has developed a matured tradition of post-elections self-assessment, which often leads to the introduction of enhanced security features to the electoral system, for example, transparent ballot boxes in 1996, and photo voter IDs in 2000. Surely, this is not the time to sidestep that tradition.
Though, there is talk of biometric voter registration or electronic voting as possibly the way forward, this prospect is being allowed to be easily shot down by the cynics because we are yet to devote enough intellectual resources to interrogate seriously this modern system of voting and its viability in Ghana. The fundamental question to be addressed before 2012 is how do we protect the integrity of the elections from the point of voter registration to the moment of winner certification? Linked to this is the question, what are the factors that influence public confidence in elections?
In 2008, both the rulling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), at the time, accused each other of encouraging non-citizens, ghost names, as well as underage Ghanaians to register ahead of the elections. Speculations about and evidence of a bloated voter register went very far to undermine the credibility of the December vote. The possibility of a bloated register also fed steroids to the macho men of electoral fraud and violence, since a bloated voter register allows the opportunity to add up numbers and intimidate your opponents, ironically even as a defence strategy against an assumed threat of fraud against the intimidator’s political party.
In the words of Dr. Afari Gyan concerning Ghana’s 2008 voters’ register:
“If our population is indeed 22 million, then perhaps 13 million people on our register would be statistically unacceptable by world standards. If that is the case, then it may mean that there is something wrong with our register.”
Political parties exploited public admission and knowledge of a bloated voter register to feed their fears and trumpet allegations that there was a plot by a particular party or between an opposing party and electoral officers to rig the December polls. This gained legitimacy in the minds of several Ghanaians, including, perhaps, most dangerously some members in the security agencies. Thus, the ‘battlefield’ for a possible rejection of the results had been provided. We cannot as a nation continue with the undemocratic phenomenon where the balance of victory in our elections will be determined by how well a political party thinks it can manipulate results in its electoral strongholds.
The EC is yet to explain to Ghanaians how come after four previous presidential elections, 2008 registered the highest number of spoilt ballots (in both percentages and actual numbers), when the same system was used last year. With an election that less than 40,000 votes decided who swore the presidential oath on January 7, having over 200,000 spoilt ballots deserves more than a cursory comment. There is no such thing anywhere in the world as perfect election arrangement, but it has been shown elsewhere that electronic voting stops ballot box stuffing, ballot box theft and destruction, multiple voting, reduces spoilt ballots to zero, and saves the EC in printing, storage, staff costs, etc. Some jurisdictions have even maintained paper ballot in addition to electronic voting to serve as a counter-check in case of a dispute, thereby responding adequately to the very concerns raised by Mr. Kanga above. It is worth examining all the various options of e-voting, their security and usability features and their cost-benefit dimensions in order to make a responsible and informed decision on the way forward for Ghana’s electoral process.
In Ghana’s volatile and charged partisan political environment, it is extremely important that we have a trusted election process, where elections will be regarded as reasonably fair, even by the losing side. If India, with more illiterates than the entire population of Ghana, with 714 million registered voters, 828,000 polling stations, and many polling stations in areas with no electricity, could deploy one million battery-powered Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for an election with more than 100 political parties and not register any notable voice of protest, then Ghana would do herself a great disservice by refusing to examine constructively the viability of an electronic electoral process.
The spectre of hundreds of very angry young men wielding cutlasses at the vicinity of the EC headquarters last December should at least remind us of how close Ghana got to become another Kenya instead of the black star of hope that it is today that Africa can indeed hold ‘normal’ general elections. The platform on which Ghana has been receiving global applause for its performance at the theatre of elections is fragile. We need not allow our weaknesses to be deafened by the din of global praise. We must get to work now and tighten the nuts and bolts of our electoral process. E-voting may well turn out to be the best way to securing the future of Africa’s fledgling democracies and, if so, Ghana should not miss this self-serving opportunity to blaze once again the continental trail. Democracy must succeed in Ghana and biometric registration and e-voting may well provide us with the warranty for democracy’s enduring success.
The author is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, a liberal think tank.
Contact: gabby@danquahinstitute.org
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Who owns Barclays account in Geneva?
Qanawu Gabby
By Thursday, August 16, 2007 the identity of a private account in Geneva, Switzerland in which about $1.7 million was transferred as bribe monies, was expected to be disclosed. This was shifted to December, and finally it seemed to us that the multi-million dollar settlement that Scancem's lawyer said could be the out-of-court settlement went through.
On the orders of Norway's Supreme Court, details of the Swiss account were supposed to be provided.
This should have helped in the appeal case that December, in which a former top employee of Scancem was accused of stealing more than $4 million allegedly meant as bribe monies to top Ghanaian personalities, namely PV Obeng and former President Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
In 2000, a report by Scancem International ANS, led by its in-house lawyer, Arne-Jørg Selen, discovered that an account at Unibank, Luxembourg, which all along they believed belonged to P V Obeng did in fact belong to one of the men who was responsible for putting money into that account, Tor Egil Kjelsaas, who was head of Scancem's cement operations in Africa, mainly Ghana and Togo. The other man was Per Jacobsen, head of finance, Scancem.
About $2.5 million had gone into that account in five years, from 1993 to 1998. Within the same period, another account held at Barclays, Geneva, Switzerland had received from Scancem another $1.7m.
This account, the Scancem bosses believed belonged to Ghana’s first lady at the time, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
About seven years ago, the Hibis Group, a UK-based anti-fraud and anti-corruption systems firm, with a branch on Drammensveien 39, Oslo, Norway, found out for Scancem that the Unibank account was in the name of Mr Kjelsaas. But, the investigators drew a blank on the Barclays account, allegedly in the name of Mrs Rawlings.
Mr Kjelsaas’ explanation to Scancem’s internal investigators, as contained in pleadings before a Norwegian District Court last year, was that the account was in his name "because he did not want to put the recipients at risk."
A similar investigation had been done by the old bosses of Scancem (before the Norwegians sold it to German firm HeidelbergCement in 1999) under Cato Holmsen, director of administration at the time.
Holmsem concluded in his report of January 2000 that in spite of some glaring irregularities with the operations of the slush funds, he could find no evidence that Kjelsaas misappropriated the bribery monies.
He had spoken to two of the intended recipients, a Togolese Minister of Industry Payadowa Boukpessi (and later Finance Minister), who was summoned to Oslo by Scancem and Ghana’s PV Obeng and had become convinced that at least those two received the bribes, if not all, as intended.
In court, however, Kjelsaas, who did not even attend proceedings, refused to cooperate and would not make available bank statements of the Unibank Bank account.
He, however, had strong witnesses in the persons of former executives of Scancem, including the highly respected Gerhard Heiberg, a former CEO and Chairman of Aker (former owners of Scancem), Per Jacobsen and Tor Nygaard to rally to his defence that indeed Scancem operated such a system of bribing top government officials and that the monies did get to their intended recipients through a system which operated on trust.
On the Barclays account, though, the court had absolutely nothing to go on.
Last June, the Norwegian Supreme Court decided to get to the bottom of it. Now it is left with the ailing 69-year-old Mr Kjelsaas to comply.
Between 1996 and 1998, a total sum of about $1.7m was paid into two private accounts, one at the Union Bank of Switzerland, Zurich and another at Citibank, Geneva. The transfers were marked either "Consultant General" or "Finders Fee".
Scancem officials made these payments to facilitate their bid at the time to obtain controlling shares in Cimtogo, the state-owned Togolese cement company.
The man who made that deal possible was the country’s Industry Minister, Payadowa Boukpessi. According to Scancem’s own internal investigation, he confirmed later to Holmsen, when he was invited to Oslo to assist with the investigation, that he received the payments as scheduled.
Interestingly, Scancem was around the same time in the process of buying more and more shares in Ghacem. In 1992, Government of Ghana owned 75% of Ghacem, by 1999, it had sold off all its stake in the company to the Norwegians.
The District Court of Norway in its judgment of last September held that Scancem knew who the monies were supposed to go to, and the purpose of the internal enquiry was to find out whether the moneys went to Kjelsaas.
In the court proceedings, Kjelsaas’s case was that the name the Unibank account was in was immaterial to the dispute. He was merely using an old account he had himself, as this was easiest. It was further argued that it was difficult for many recipients in Africa to open accounts abroad.
Kjelsaas was said to have withdrawn cash in London or Luxembourg and passed it on to the correct recipients. His witnesses contended that Kjelsaas took the money to Africa by air.
The defendant’s case was that it was useful for the account to be in his name when taking cash out. Little was said or known about the Barclays account, however.
Court testimonies given and evidence before the court showed that Scancem paid amounts to other accounts during this period which were controlled by African recipients.
Tor Nygaard, who headed Scancem operations in Ghana, for a long time, told the court that Scancem also paid out amounts in cash locally to a number of recipients in Ghana, usually in envelopes and that the person who undertook this exercise was a top Ghanaian executive at Ghacem, Accra at the time.
From 1993 to 1998, according to Scancem’s internal probe, a total amount of $1,690,000 was paid into the Barclays account in Geneva. $2,460,00 went into the Unibank account.
A very senior source at Scancem told me and Kweku Baako in 2007 that the company was baffled by the fact that more money went into the Unibank account than the Barclays account, and this became even more so after Mr Obeng resigned as top presidential staffer in December 1996.
He told us (captured on audio tape) that Scancem’s case was not about Mr and Mrs Rawlings or PV Obeng. The company accepts that some monies were certainly paid to top government officials in Ghana, and this may run into double the $4.1m being claimed back from Mr Kjelsaas.
"What we are saying is that this [$4.1m] is the amount that we have serious reasons to believe never really got to them but was taken by Kjelsaas."
When he was further questioned about the reliability of the evidence given by Mr Heiberg, the Scancem source said, "We don’t put enough weight on his evidence because these things happened after him, I believe. It was just a situation of the old bosses of Scancem coming to defend one of their own. That’s how we saw it."
He further stated that the German owners who took over Scancem in 1999 also intend with this trial to send a clear message that they "disapprove of the bribery scheme that was operated by the former owners of Scancem."
As was captured in the report filed for Dagens Naerinsgliv on April 21-22, "In the middle of the 1990s, there were two anonymous bank accounts in Unibank SA in Luxembourg and Barclays SA in Geneva in Switzerland which were earmarked 'Ghana’, and substantial amount was being paid in dollars to the said accounts from SCANCEM’s headquarters in Oslo."
As judge Trine Standal observed in the ruling, "Scancem itself established a system of bribery and corruption. The system required payments to be untraceable. The system can only be based on trust, and producing evidence in retrospect can be difficult. Kjelsaas finds it hard to prove he is innocent, and Scancem has a problem proving him guilty."
The decision by the Supreme Court of Norway to compel full disclosure of the Barclays account is a reflection of the court’s frustration: The trial judge held, "Tor Egil Kjelsaas has made absolutely no contribution to clarifying the matter, or to undermine Scancem International ANS’s claims against him.
":Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s health has deteriorated, admittedly, but he could have produced account statements, company documents etc. Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s failure to assist in clarifying matters affects how the Court sees the evidence."
Information reaching me by September 2007 was that Scancem might still reach some form of settlement with Kjelsaas before the December appeal. So, it seems it has come to pass?
By Thursday, August 16, 2007 the identity of a private account in Geneva, Switzerland in which about $1.7 million was transferred as bribe monies, was expected to be disclosed. This was shifted to December, and finally it seemed to us that the multi-million dollar settlement that Scancem's lawyer said could be the out-of-court settlement went through.
On the orders of Norway's Supreme Court, details of the Swiss account were supposed to be provided.
This should have helped in the appeal case that December, in which a former top employee of Scancem was accused of stealing more than $4 million allegedly meant as bribe monies to top Ghanaian personalities, namely PV Obeng and former President Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
In 2000, a report by Scancem International ANS, led by its in-house lawyer, Arne-Jørg Selen, discovered that an account at Unibank, Luxembourg, which all along they believed belonged to P V Obeng did in fact belong to one of the men who was responsible for putting money into that account, Tor Egil Kjelsaas, who was head of Scancem's cement operations in Africa, mainly Ghana and Togo. The other man was Per Jacobsen, head of finance, Scancem.
About $2.5 million had gone into that account in five years, from 1993 to 1998. Within the same period, another account held at Barclays, Geneva, Switzerland had received from Scancem another $1.7m.
This account, the Scancem bosses believed belonged to Ghana’s first lady at the time, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
About seven years ago, the Hibis Group, a UK-based anti-fraud and anti-corruption systems firm, with a branch on Drammensveien 39, Oslo, Norway, found out for Scancem that the Unibank account was in the name of Mr Kjelsaas. But, the investigators drew a blank on the Barclays account, allegedly in the name of Mrs Rawlings.
Mr Kjelsaas’ explanation to Scancem’s internal investigators, as contained in pleadings before a Norwegian District Court last year, was that the account was in his name "because he did not want to put the recipients at risk."
A similar investigation had been done by the old bosses of Scancem (before the Norwegians sold it to German firm HeidelbergCement in 1999) under Cato Holmsen, director of administration at the time.
Holmsem concluded in his report of January 2000 that in spite of some glaring irregularities with the operations of the slush funds, he could find no evidence that Kjelsaas misappropriated the bribery monies.
He had spoken to two of the intended recipients, a Togolese Minister of Industry Payadowa Boukpessi (and later Finance Minister), who was summoned to Oslo by Scancem and Ghana’s PV Obeng and had become convinced that at least those two received the bribes, if not all, as intended.
In court, however, Kjelsaas, who did not even attend proceedings, refused to cooperate and would not make available bank statements of the Unibank Bank account.
He, however, had strong witnesses in the persons of former executives of Scancem, including the highly respected Gerhard Heiberg, a former CEO and Chairman of Aker (former owners of Scancem), Per Jacobsen and Tor Nygaard to rally to his defence that indeed Scancem operated such a system of bribing top government officials and that the monies did get to their intended recipients through a system which operated on trust.
On the Barclays account, though, the court had absolutely nothing to go on.
Last June, the Norwegian Supreme Court decided to get to the bottom of it. Now it is left with the ailing 69-year-old Mr Kjelsaas to comply.
Between 1996 and 1998, a total sum of about $1.7m was paid into two private accounts, one at the Union Bank of Switzerland, Zurich and another at Citibank, Geneva. The transfers were marked either "Consultant General" or "Finders Fee".
Scancem officials made these payments to facilitate their bid at the time to obtain controlling shares in Cimtogo, the state-owned Togolese cement company.
The man who made that deal possible was the country’s Industry Minister, Payadowa Boukpessi. According to Scancem’s own internal investigation, he confirmed later to Holmsen, when he was invited to Oslo to assist with the investigation, that he received the payments as scheduled.
Interestingly, Scancem was around the same time in the process of buying more and more shares in Ghacem. In 1992, Government of Ghana owned 75% of Ghacem, by 1999, it had sold off all its stake in the company to the Norwegians.
The District Court of Norway in its judgment of last September held that Scancem knew who the monies were supposed to go to, and the purpose of the internal enquiry was to find out whether the moneys went to Kjelsaas.
In the court proceedings, Kjelsaas’s case was that the name the Unibank account was in was immaterial to the dispute. He was merely using an old account he had himself, as this was easiest. It was further argued that it was difficult for many recipients in Africa to open accounts abroad.
Kjelsaas was said to have withdrawn cash in London or Luxembourg and passed it on to the correct recipients. His witnesses contended that Kjelsaas took the money to Africa by air.
The defendant’s case was that it was useful for the account to be in his name when taking cash out. Little was said or known about the Barclays account, however.
Court testimonies given and evidence before the court showed that Scancem paid amounts to other accounts during this period which were controlled by African recipients.
Tor Nygaard, who headed Scancem operations in Ghana, for a long time, told the court that Scancem also paid out amounts in cash locally to a number of recipients in Ghana, usually in envelopes and that the person who undertook this exercise was a top Ghanaian executive at Ghacem, Accra at the time.
From 1993 to 1998, according to Scancem’s internal probe, a total amount of $1,690,000 was paid into the Barclays account in Geneva. $2,460,00 went into the Unibank account.
A very senior source at Scancem told me and Kweku Baako in 2007 that the company was baffled by the fact that more money went into the Unibank account than the Barclays account, and this became even more so after Mr Obeng resigned as top presidential staffer in December 1996.
He told us (captured on audio tape) that Scancem’s case was not about Mr and Mrs Rawlings or PV Obeng. The company accepts that some monies were certainly paid to top government officials in Ghana, and this may run into double the $4.1m being claimed back from Mr Kjelsaas.
"What we are saying is that this [$4.1m] is the amount that we have serious reasons to believe never really got to them but was taken by Kjelsaas."
When he was further questioned about the reliability of the evidence given by Mr Heiberg, the Scancem source said, "We don’t put enough weight on his evidence because these things happened after him, I believe. It was just a situation of the old bosses of Scancem coming to defend one of their own. That’s how we saw it."
He further stated that the German owners who took over Scancem in 1999 also intend with this trial to send a clear message that they "disapprove of the bribery scheme that was operated by the former owners of Scancem."
As was captured in the report filed for Dagens Naerinsgliv on April 21-22, "In the middle of the 1990s, there were two anonymous bank accounts in Unibank SA in Luxembourg and Barclays SA in Geneva in Switzerland which were earmarked 'Ghana’, and substantial amount was being paid in dollars to the said accounts from SCANCEM’s headquarters in Oslo."
As judge Trine Standal observed in the ruling, "Scancem itself established a system of bribery and corruption. The system required payments to be untraceable. The system can only be based on trust, and producing evidence in retrospect can be difficult. Kjelsaas finds it hard to prove he is innocent, and Scancem has a problem proving him guilty."
The decision by the Supreme Court of Norway to compel full disclosure of the Barclays account is a reflection of the court’s frustration: The trial judge held, "Tor Egil Kjelsaas has made absolutely no contribution to clarifying the matter, or to undermine Scancem International ANS’s claims against him.
":Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s health has deteriorated, admittedly, but he could have produced account statements, company documents etc. Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s failure to assist in clarifying matters affects how the Court sees the evidence."
Information reaching me by September 2007 was that Scancem might still reach some form of settlement with Kjelsaas before the December appeal. So, it seems it has come to pass?
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