Botchwey report reveals NDC did not collate 2016 results

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) could not collate its own results in the 2016 presidential election so as to compare the figures with that of the Election Commission, it has been revealed.

The party relied on Felix Kwakye Ofosu’s ‘private’ arrangement to collate the results, which also failed miserably, according to the Professor Kwesi Botchwey Committee report, the Daily Guide newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper has been serialising a 65-page Executive Summary of the report the NDC has kept like a state secret.

The 13-member committee was set up by the party to investigate its historic defeat in the 2016 polls.

According to the report, the party had two systems, one party based and the other private-- operated by Kwakye Ofosu, a former Deputy Minister of Communications-- of collating the results but said both systems were dysfunctional and a mess.

When the committee contacted Kwakye Ofosu, he claimed that his system was a backup and not the main collation platform of the party.

“There were evidently two systems, one party-based, and the other, according to Felix Kwakye Ofosu, a private initiative. The Election Directorate evidently regarded the Kwakye Ofosu initiative as primary whereas Mr Kwakye Ofosu and his team regarded it only as a backup system,” the report said.

The report indicates, “For reasons of its obvious importance, we treat the subject fully in the main report,” adding, “Our general finding is that the party’s collation efforts were a complete mess and a situation that brought the dysfunctionalism in the party to a head!”