Eoco, CHRAJ Must Get to the Bottom of EC's Corruption Saga

On Wednesday, July 19, 2017, a group calling itself 'Concerned staff Of the Electoral Commission (EC)' presented a petition to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to commence impeachment process against the Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs. Charlotte Osei.

Entitled -'Petition against the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs. Charlotte Osei', the group accused the EC Chair of breaching some provisions of the 1992 Constitution regarding her office, conduct and duties.

According to the group, soon after her appointment as the EC boss, Mrs. Osei arranged for a 2015 edition of a Toyota Land Cruiser V8 with registration number WR 2291-15 from the office of President John Mahama, for her official use without going through the procurement process or recourse to the Commission.

To utterly nail the EC Chairperson before the President, ostensibly to ensure she is booted out of office, the petitioners leveled about 27 allegations against her.

This did not go down well with Mrs. Osei who also reacted to the allegations by releasing a 12 page counter-accusation against her accusers, including accusing them of poorly mismanaging the finances of the Commission.

The Chronicle thinks the accusations and counter accusations from the EC boss and her staff must not be allowed to end there, as has always been the case.

Since Mrs. Osei made her startling revelations of what appears to be the cancerous 'create, loot and share' at the EC in her response to the petition, the appropriate state investigative bodies should not be seen sleeping on this issue.

According to the EC boss, misappropriation of funds meant for electoral staff was endemic; a practice she revealed was described as a 'convention' at the Commission when the issue came to the attention of the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI).

"In 2015, attempts by the Chairperson to stop district electoral officers from inserting ghost names in the list of officials recruited for the 2015 district level elections to enable them appropriate the allowances for the officials, resulted in the Chairperson being reported to the BNI for investigation.

"In the report attached hereto, dated September 23, 2015, and marked 'CO21A', staff, according to the BNI, admit to a culture of misappropriation of funds meant for electoral staff and assert that this practice is a 'convention' at the Commission," she said.

It is clear that when the two factions are allowed to continue with their outburst, they would end up washing their dirty linen in the full glare of the public, which in our opinion, will not augur well for the Commission, which is an iconic state institution.

The multi-billion question The Chronicle is asking is -why has Mrs. Charlotte Osei not gone public with the information about misappropriation of funds and other serious corrupt deals at the EC?

What was she waiting for all these years before now bringing it to the attention of the relevant bodies, or better still to the good people of this country, so the appropriate measure could be taken against those who would be found culpable?

Is the EC Chair telling Ghanaians that if her audacious staff had not brought a petition against her conduct in office to the President, she wouldn't have come out with all the information itemized above?

The Chronicle is, therefore, calling on state investigative bodies, such as the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and Ghana Police Service to dig deep into the allegations and furnish Ghanaians with the truth of the matter.

This we believe would go a long way to restore the hope Ghanaians have in the Electoral Commission, because as things stand now, many of our people have lost confidence in the electoral body, and if nothing was done about it accepting the outcome of the 2020 election will be hard nut to crack.

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