President of the republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has sacked the electoral commissioner, Charlotte Osei, together with her two deputies. The decision for the dismissal follows a recent allegation of corruption filed against Charlotte Osei at the Supreme Court.
There are claims that President Akufo-Addo handed to Charlotte Osei the dismissal letter after meeting her secretly at the Presidency.
“The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has, on Thursday, 28th June, 2018, removed from office the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei, and her two deputies, Mr. Amadu Sulley and Ms. Georgina Opoku Amankwah, with immediate effect,” a statement signed by the information minister, Mustapha Hamid, revealed.
Citing a strong case for the removal of Charlotte Osei and her two deputies – Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku Amankwah with immediate effect, the presidency stated that a committee set up by the Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, “recommended their removal from office’ on the basis of “misbehavior and incompetence”.
To this effect, the president has ordered all electoral commissioners to hand over their schedules to the director for human resource and general services of the electoral commission. This was after various controversies ahead of the 2016 elections alleged she was secretly doing the bidding of the erstwhile Mahama administration.
Petition filed to sack EC boss The firing of Charlotte Osei and her deputies traces back to a 27-point petition filed by some angry workers of the Electoral Commission (EC) who cited instances of the abuse of power, mismanagement of public funds and causing of financial loss to the state as probable reasons for thier dismissal.
These angry workers claimed Madam Osei fiercely abused the powers of her office in the awarding of “fraudulent” contracts to some companies including the Superlock Technologies Limited (STL) and IT Firm, Dream Oval which she paid $76,000 to.
Reaction from Opposition NDC So far, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) looks not surprised by this action which they had seen coming even before the 2016 general elections. Sources close to the party’s inner circle say that the NDC will be organizing a press confab on the issue as they launch a fierce campaign against government’s removal of all three electoral commissioners.
