Competence at EC low – Amoako Baah

The decision by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) to write to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to demand a copy of the petition seeking her removal from office, betrays the incompetence of the Charlotte Osei-led election management body, Dr Richard Amoako Baah, a leading member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said.

According to him, Mrs Osei should have rather written to the Chief Justice for a copy of the petition and not the president.

In July this year, some staff of the EC petitioned Nana Akufo-Addo to remove Mrs. Osei from office over alleged abuse of office, financial loss and breaches of Ghana’s procurement laws.

The President forwarded the petition to Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo to deal with the matter.

Mrs Osei is to answer to six out of 27 accusations levelled against her by her two deputies: Amadu Sulley (in charge of Operations), and Georgina Amankwa (in charge of Corporate Services).

“Respectfully your Excellency, I would appreciate being furnished with a copy of the said petition to enable me obtain the requisite advice I may need on the matter,” she requested in a letter to the president.

But speaking on the matter in an interview with Obeng Mensah, sit-in host of Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM on Wednesday, 13 December, Dr Amoako Baah, who is a former head of the Political Science Department at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), said: “The president had no choice than to forward the petition to the Chief Justice, this is a constitutional issue.

“You don’t write to the president to give you a copy of the petition because he is not the Chief Justice. She should have known this.

“This is an indication of the low level of competence from the Electoral Commission, the competence is very low that is why we have some of these problems occurring at the commission.”