Majority extols EC boss for winning US award

The Majority in Parliament Wednesday eschewed partisanship and congratulated the chairperson of the Electoral Commission Mrs Charlotte Osei for receiving the Woman of Courage Award.

“I am sure if we want to compare the backlash of Charlotte Osei with that of Dr. Afari Gyan, it tells you clear that she is sitting on a very hot seat,” the deputy Majority Chief Whip Mathew Nyindam told Starr News’ Parliamentary correspondent Ibrahim Alhassan.

He further added, “I am sure they are also awarding her because she is a woman and if you look at the pressure she has been under it is enormous and she still on it because she hasn’t resigned and I am sure that it is one of the reason that they saw the courage in her which I think it is okay.

“We are all encouraging women to take part in leadership, political activities. So I congratulate her. But that doesn’t mean that all is over. More is yet to come. She should be prepared. She is serving mother Ghana.”

He urged her to take criticisms that will build her up and ignore those that are “highly irrelevant.”

The US government Tuesday awarded Mrs. Osei with the United States Department of State’s Woman of Courage Award for 2017.

The head of the country’s election management body who has been at the helm of affairs for two years, was honoured for the reforms that she brought to the commission leading to a “credible election 2016.”

The US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert P. Jackson described her as someone who “epitomizes the phrase, woman of courage.”

Mrs. Osei came under severe public backlash from the New Patriotic Party which was then in opposition. She is currently under investigations over alleged managerial incompetence among others being championed by some staff of the EC.

Receiving the award, Mrs. Osei acknowledged that other staff and commissioners deserve credit too for their hard work, adding she was “totally overwhelmed and humbled” by the US government’s recognition.