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Business leaders in the country have reported that the current election petition pending before the Supreme Court is damping business confidence and eating into their earnings. A survey of business leaders from the financial, automobile, ICT, real estate and the Food and Beverage sector by The Finder last week indicated that the majority of the business executives were suffering from lower than usual patronage for their services. The CEOs said they believed that this was linked to the current election petition before the Supreme Court. The issue is also affecting foreign investments in the country. �A number of them [foreign investors] are looking to Ghana as a choice location in West Africa, but they are hesitant because of the case in court,� an expatriate banker told The Finder. The business leaders indicated that the earlier the case is disposed of the better it would be for business in the country. The snag, they said, was a possible riotous reaction to whatever verdict the court gives in the case. A minister of state, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini had in April also hinted that the ongoing election petition was serving as a disincentive to investors. �It has affected the confidence of investors who want to come into this country. So if you are counting cost you must count all those things [and not only the live telecast]. We need to have a closure to the court case.� Speaking on Joy FM�s news analysis programme News file last month, Inusah Fuseini, who is the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, projected the total cost of the petition to the nation would be very expensive. He explained that even though Ghana is a democratic country, it unfortunately finds itself in a third world region �subject to many political risks; so investors take political risks into consideration in coming�. For instance, the outcome of the election petition can lead to the abrogation of a contract, he said. Only last week, political scientist, Dr Kwesi Jonah warned at a forum in Accra that the election petition hearing has the potential of threatening national peace and cohesion. He therefore advised civil societies and faith-based organisations to educate their members to accept the Supreme Court�s ruling. And last Friday, Dr Edward N. Mahama, a former presidential candidate of the People�s National Convention, also asked executives of the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress to sensitise their supporters to the intricacies and legalities of events at the court to ensure that their supporters accept the outcome of the legal battle. In terms of tangible costs, Joy News computed from investigations last April that television stations telecasting the petition hearing, namely GTV, TV3, Metro TV, were losing at least GH�47,680 daily in terms of actual production costs (in the case of GTV) and in terms of sponsorship and advertisements in the case of all the three stations.