Prosecute Charlotte Osei - EC petitioners

Some staff of the Electoral Commission (EC) whose action led to the removal of the Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei, and her two deputies, are pushing for the three to be prosecuted for procurement infractions among other corruption allegations.

Mrs Osei and her two Deputies, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku Amankwa, were on Thursday, June 28, 2018, removed from office as Commissioners of EC by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on grounds of “stated misbehaviour and incompetence.”

While their removal has been condemned by some Ghanaians as being politically motivated, especially by the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the workers applauded President Akufo-Addo for acting on the recommendations of the Chief Justice’s report to remove the three commissioners.

The staff said the removal of Mrs Osei, in particular, was not enough and that they will adopt “all legal means available to ensure that her removal is permanent and cast in stone.”

At a news conference yesterday in Accra, the staff, numbering 16, argued that aspects of the report of the Chief Justice’s committee on their petition, which bothers on criminality on the part of Mrs Osei, should be forwarded to the Special Prosecutor for further investigation and possible prosecution.

“We will leave no stone unturned in our quest to ensure that she faces the full effects of the law which she gleefully breached with wanton recklessness,” the workers said at the news conference.

Accordingly, the workers said, they have directed their lawyers to formally submit their complaint to the Special Prosecutor to go into the matter.

Mrs Osei and two of her deputies were removed from office about two weeks ago by President Akufo-Addo over allegations of procurement breaches and in some cases financial malfeasance.

The President took the decision after a committee set up by the Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, to investigate a petition against the top EC officials made the recommendations in its report.