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The Executive Director of the Danquah Institute and senior member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Asare �Gabby� Otchere-Darko has strongly denied offering the Editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper, Ben Ephson $20,000 to skew pre-election 2008 opinion polls in favour of the then governing party. In the latest release of secret US embassy polls by the international whistle blowing website Wikileaks, Ben Ephson is reported to have lamented the role of money in the 2008 NPP campaign in the run up to the elections, saying he "had never seen so much cash before." Again, he said quite openly that the NPP had tried to bribe him with at least $20,000 to produce a poll favorable to them and named the party official offering the money as Gabby Otchere-Darko, a cousin of the party's candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo. He also said, although without presenting the evidence he claimed to have, that the NPP tried to get the names of polling agents for other parties. Ben Ephson said the NPP wanted to use this information to bribe agents, and was willing to pay $1,000 for polling agents to collaborate with vote rigging. Ephson said that in the six weeks leading up to the conversation, the NPP had spent large sums of money in ten swing constituencies, trying to secure the parliamentary seats. Asked by the US Embassy�s Political Affairs Officer (POLOFF) where the money was coming from, Ephson said it was coming out of the government's offers, primarily from kickbacks on government-awarded contracts. However, in an interview with Citi News on Monday September 5, a visibly shocked Gabby Otchere-Darko said the allegations are false and called on Ben Ephson to clear the air and exonerate him of the damning Wikileaks report. He revealed that it was Ben Ephson who rather informed him of an opinion poll he had conducted on the upcoming poll. He could, however, not recollect the results of the poll. �I never tried to bribe Ben Ephson with any money whether with $20,000 dollars or anything. Ben is alleged to have said and I think that it is only fair that he comes out to say what he said or did not say. I never got in touch with Ben Ephson about any opinion in favour of the NPP.� Ben Ephson declined to comment on the matter when reached on phone by Citi News. Gabby Otchere-Darko however expressed disappointment over Ben Ephson�s failure to comment on the matter and has made a passionate call on the pollster to speak on the matter.