By William
Yaw Owusu
Tuesday, November
28, 2017
Information reaching DAILY GUIDE indicates
that the Judicial Council, through the Chief Justice (CJ), Sophia A.B. Akuffo, is
empanelling a committee to look into the alleged abuse of power and corruption
scandal that has rocked the Electoral Commission (EC).
There appears to be sufficient grounds for impeachment of the EC officers involved,
who are at loggerheads, thereby jeopardizing the operations of the commission.
A five-member committee is expected to investigate the
EC chairperson, Charlotte Osei, together with her two deputies - Georgina
Opoku-Amankwa, who is in-charge of Corporate Services and Amadu Sulley, in-charge
of Operations - as prescribed under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution.
The committee, to be presided over by a Supreme
Court Judge, has two other Court of Appeal judges (male and female), as well as
two other members nominated by the Council of State (female and male) as its membership.
Both the judiciary and the Council of State are said
to have nominated their respective representatives and as a result, the
impeachment proceedings have become imminent.
The committee will soon commence sitting.
Prima
Facie
Case
The impeachment committee is being established
because the Chief Justice, in a preliminary investigation, reportedly
established a prima facie case
against the three EC bosses following separate petitions filed against them.
According to sources, the CJ is expected to write to
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo requesting for an order directed at the
three EC officials to step aside before the committee could commence its work.
A source said several infractions in the award of
contracts at the EC will feature prominently in the committee’s investigations.
The preliminary investigations into the scandal
commenced last August when Madam Sophia Akuffo wrote officially to the commissioners
to file their official responses to the allegations leveled against them in the
various petitions.
First
Petition
The whole action against the EC officials was
triggered by a petition sent to the presidency by Lawyer Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang,
who was acting on behalf of some unnamed staff of the commission, seeking to
trigger impeachment proceedings against Ms Charlotte Osei.
A litany of allegations were leveled against her,
including spending GH¢3.9 million to partition an office, receipt of a bullet-proof
Toyota Land Cruiser from the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC)
government, spending about $14 million for district offices when the Public
Procurement Authority (PPA) had authorized her to use only $7.5 million, as
well as attending Cabinet meetings under President John Mahama’s
administration, among others.
Second
Petition
Later, another petition was filed by a lawyer called
Douglas Seidu against the EC boss on grounds of breach of procurement practices
and provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 633) (as amended), gross
financial mismanagement, as well as conflict of interest.
The petitioner alleged that Mrs. Osei put herself in
a conflict of interest situation when she awarded a contract to Aerovote
Security Printing (Ghana) Limited to print the pink sheets used for the 2016
general elections, insisting that she has strong business links with the director
of Aerovote and said that she (Osei) had ‘arranged’ the deal even before the
procurement process opened.
Lawyer Seidu claimed the EC boss ‘unilaterally’
awarded contracts worth GH¢249,018,895.03 and $71,406,388.80 in breach of
procurement processes and also awarded various contracts, including printing of
letterheads and a logo for the commission that indicated gross financial
mismanagement.
Fight
Back
Initially, the EC boss, through her lawyers -
Sory@Law - who are also the commission’s external solicitors, hit back at her
accusers, insisting that she had not been corrupt or abused her office and
rather accused her two deputies of deliberately scheming to frustrate her stay
in office.
The chairperson, in her initial response, openly
accused Mrs. Opoku-Amankwaa of signing contracts worth over $40 million without
her knowledge and authorization between May and September 2015.
Illegal
Votes Transfer
She also turned her attention to Amadu Sulley and
said apart from transferring votes illegally in the run-up to the 2016 general
elections, he (Sulley) also pocketed huge amounts of money from some political
parties.
“The Deputy Chairperson, Operations, collected funds
above GH¢6million in cash from some political parties for the organization of
party primaries without recourse to the structures of the Commission, and
without the involvement of the finance department of the Commission,” Ms
Charlotte Osei said.
Counter
Petition
The fight became nastier when other unknown persons
who appeared to be on the side of Mrs. Osei, sent a counter petition to the
president to investigate her two deputies also for corruption and abuse of
office.
Accusations and counter accusations then ensued
between the EC boss on one hand and her two deputies on the other. They fought
back strongly, trying to parry the chairperson’s allegations.
Corporate
Services
Mrs. Opoku-Amankwaa, for instance, said in a
25-point response to the EC chairperson’s public statement that “The chairperson’s
claim that there was a deliberate strategy to frustrate her work and tenure is
palpably false and a figment of her own imagination.”
The deputy commissioner appeared to suggest that it
was rather Mrs. Osei who was the problem at the commission and not her or Amadu
Sulley.
“Her managerial deficiencies, coupled with her poor
human relations and lack of appreciation for team work, are too manifest to
escape public judgement,” Ms Opoku-Amankwaa averred.
She also described as “frivolous, useless,
fabrications and a figment” of Mrs. Charlotte Osei’s imagination, the
allegations leveled against her and asked that they be treated with contempt.
Operations
Amadu Sulley did not take issues lightly when he was
accused of pocketing GH¢6 million from the parties.
“I don’t understand the motive of the Chair to come
out now to make this unfortunate allegation against me and the Deputy Chair,
Finance/Administration.”
He also accused Mrs. Osei of sidelining him in the
daily operations at the commission.
He said he was taking legal advice and concluded
with a sarcastic statement, “If you tell one lie you need a thousand lies to
cover up!”
The EC boss then sued Lawyer Opoku-Agyemang for
defamation and said she was moving to clear her name; but it is unclear if she
has been pursuing the action.
Initial
Impediment
Before the formal preliminary investigation
commenced, a private citizen, Ayamga Yakubu Akoglo, had filed a writ at the
Supreme Court, seeking to prevent the Chief Justice from going ahead to
investigate the EC boss, but it is unclear if the suit was ever determined by
the court or withdrawn by the applicant.
The plaintiff had wanted the suit, which also cited
the Attorney General, to declare the action being initiated against the EC boss
by the Judicial Council as unconstitutional, void and of no effect, after
averring that the issues raised in the petition against Mrs. Osei had nothing
to do with her core functions as prescribed under Article 45 of the 1992
Constitution and as a result, did not warrant her removal per Article 46 (1) of
the Constitution.
Interdiction
Currently, Mrs. Opoku-Amankwa is on interdiction
following a complaint filed by Mrs. Osei.
Mrs Opoku-Amankwaa has been facing the EOCO over the
alleged misuse of Endowment Fund of the commission’s staff.
Amadu Sulley, on the other hand, is still in office
but in the heat of the scandal, accused Mrs. Charlotte Osei of sidelining him
in the day-to-day management of the EC, a protest which suggested that the EC
Chairperson was running a ‘one-woman’ show.
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