Charlotte Osei's removal as EC boss was unusual — Prof Agyeman-Duah

Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a former senior governance advisor to the United Nations, has described the circumstances surrounding the removal of former Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson Charlotte Osei as unusual.

He expressed concern over the process, particularly the fact that a single petition led to her dismissal.

According to Professor Agyeman-Duah, it was problematic for the president to act on just one petition by referring it to the Chief Justice for further action.

He believes that a single complaint against the head of the Commission should not have been sufficient grounds for removal.

In addressing concerns raised by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regarding the current voter register, Professor Agyeman-Duah suggested that more effective mechanisms should be established for handling such petitions against the EC chair.

The way the former Chair Charlotte Osei was removed was strange, just one individual submitted a petition, and that one individual’s petition was conveyed to the Supreme Court. This gives room for others to come and do the same. I think there must be a better way of handling a petition to remove the EC chair, he said on TV3.

He proposed that the authority to appoint the chair of the commission should be removed from the president and entrusted to an independent body outside the executive branch of government.

Charlotte Osei sacked

Some concerned workers of the EC in July 2017 petitioned President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Chief Justice to begin impeachment processes against Charlotte Osei.

They accused Osei of taking unilateral decisions without recourse to the appropriate departments of the EC, even her deputies.

They also accused the EC Chair of engaging in fraudulent activities, citing her decision to cancel a contract awarded to Superlock Technologies Limited (STL) to supply and manage Biometric Voter Registration machines (BVRs) and the Biometric Voter Devices (BVDs), as well as her directive for the payment of $76,000 to IT firm, Dream Oval.

2 deputies sacked

Her two deputies, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku Amankwah were also asked to step aside.

• One of the main charges against her, which she could not defend herself on, was that on 21st August 2015, she awarded a contract to STL, costing the taxpayer $22.34 million without telling anyone at the Commission and without going through the procurement process

• Another allegation was that she was authorised to spend just $7.5 million on contracts for the construction of prefab offices in 2016 and yet she gave out contracts more than twice as much at $14.34m. Her response was that this bad contract was also endorsed by her deputies so she did nothing wrong.

• Charlotte Osei paid $32,510 of EC money to a company which had no contract with the EC. That company is Dream Oval LTD. As if that was not enough. She went on to pay another $76,000 to the same company when it had no contract with the EC.

In her Defence, she said that money was a grant from USAID and therefore not public funds.

• The EC Chairperson, in another charge, was approved by the Public Procurement Authority to spend GH¢98,000 for some consultancy work. After the approval, she went her merry way to spend GH¢209,000.

In her Defence, lawyer Charlotte Osei said she thought there was no law which required her to go back to the PPA to spend above the limit approved by the PPA.

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