Although the NDC was defeated by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the last election, Mr. Amidu in his latest article insisted that “…as I said time without number during the 2016 elections, she was appointed by a corrupt Government precisely because of her incompetence that made her susceptible for use for an election rigging agenda.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”a97iDDHeXwoM3DGgBkpksH1DZfbWLeF7″]“Her appointing Government failed in the rigging agenda despite all the attempts by the Commission to narrow the election to a two-party race to facilitate easy rigging for the incumbent. She has, either on her own or at the instance of her mentor, been trying to recycle herself as a neutral Electoral Commissioner after her Church Papa mediated her peaceful announcement of the election results,” he added.

Petition against EC boss

Charlotte Osei who was appointed as the Chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Commission in June 2015 has come under intense pressure from persons within and outside the commission who are calling for her dismissal following some recent developments within the election regulatory body.

The EC’s tensions came to the fore after some employees of the Commission petitioned President Akufo-Addo to dismiss Charlotte Osei for alleged financial malfeasance.

Prior to the petition, Mrs. Osei had had asked the Commission’s Deputy Chairperson in-charge of Finance and Administration, Georgina Opoku Amankwah and the Finance Director , Dr. Joseph Kweku Asamoah to proceed on leave over the loss of some GHc480, 000 from the EC’s Endowment Fund.

‘Incompetent’ Charlotte Osei could have done better

Mr. Amidu in his latest epistle said Charlotte Osei showed her “incompetence” when she engaged in a banter with some members of the commission in the media.

“Come what may, the Chairperson of the Commission had a supreme responsibility to maintain the integrity of the priceless Commission of which she had leadership. She should not have allowed herself to have been baited into fighting and exchanging vituperative words publicly with both Deputy Commissioners and other members of management. Speaking for myself, she once more exhibited her incompetence and lack of leadership skills that in my view rendered her unfit for appointment to the high office of Electoral Commissioner in the first place,” he added.

Below is Martin Amidu’s latest article:

NDC CREATED THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION CHAOS THAT NOW PORTENDS A BAD OMEN FOR THE CONGRESS: BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU

The NDC’s precipitate defensive actions, without waiting for the blood to cool and reason to assume its seat, when the petition against their appointed Electoral Commission Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, became public knowledge, may see all the three Commissioners appointed by the Congress or a number of them whipped out of office and new ones appointed by their so called adversaries, the NPP.

This is happening because we all remained silent and allowed charlatans and strangers to our values and ideals to hi-jack the NDC and alienate the most committed, selfless and experienced strategic and tactical founding thinkers of the party. The last few weeks saw the Electoral Commissioner, Mrs. Charlotte Osei, with the conditions of service of a Justice of the Court of Appeal, descending into the gutters and casting aspersion on her two Deputy Commissioners, also with the conditions of service of Justices of the High Court. She completely lost her comportment, decorum, and above all the high moral character and proven integrity of a Justice of the Court of Appeal to exhibit absolute patience in the face of every provocation so as to maintain the honour and dignity of her high office as the Electoral Commissioner and of the Commission as a whole – simply because the constitutional right of petitioning for her removal had been invoked against her.

Come what may, the Chairperson of the Commission had a supreme responsibility to maintain the integrity of the priceless Commission of which she had leadership. She should not have allowed herself to have been baited into fighting and exchanging vituperative words publicly with both Deputy Commissioners and other members of management.

Speaking for myself, she once more exhibited her incompetence and lack of leadership skills that in my view rendered her unfit for appointment to the high office of Electoral Commissioner in the first place. But as I said time without number during the 2016 elections, she was appointed by a corrupt Government precisely because of her incompetence that made her susceptible for use for an election rigging agenda. Her appointing Government failed in the rigging agenda despite all the attempts by the Commission to narrow the election to a two-party race to facilitate easy rigging for the incumbent.

She has, either on her own or at the instance of her mentor, been trying to recycle herself as a neutral Electoral Commissioner after her Church Papa mediated her peaceful announcement of the election results. The petition to the President for her removal from office by some alleged officers of the Commission made her to welcome support even from the leadership of the NDC in and out of Parliament.

They in turn, without producing any evidence charged the NPP Government in several statements and interviews published in the media with witch-hunting her from office.

The two Deputy Electoral Commissioners who were also appointed to the Commission by the past NDC Government felt compelled to explain their versions in response to the unusual accusations from their Chairperson in the media, as though they supported the petition against her, Charlotte Osei.

The responses of the two Deputy Commissioners who had been longer on the job than the Chairperson cannot be said to be witch-hunting by the NPP. However, the NDC, which had alienated almost all their experienced and founding strategic and tactical thinking members just could not think very deeply of the consequences of their three appointees fighting each other in public at the Commission. I suspected that once the NDC had openly taken the side of the Chairperson whom we, anti-corruption crusaders, suspected was appointed with a rigging agenda, they threw caution to the wind and could not have the patience of old age to cut their losses.

My fears that the chaos at the Commission would lead the present young crop of the NDC to self-destruct was confirmed when I discovered on 29th and 31st July 2017 respectively that the author of the second petition for the removal of the two Deputy Commissioners was Emmanuel Korsi Senyo, the concerned citizen, who had acted in the past as an NDC surrogate commencing action against the General Legal Council in the Supreme Court in defence of Francis Sosu, who had contested the primaries in my constituency, Madina, for the NDC. The second petition is not, therefore, from any witches from the NPP let alone to hunt the Deputy Commissioners. A quick Google search will establish that Emmanuel Korsi Senyo a.k.a Emmanuel Korsi Senyo Kumedzina is a young activist of the NDC and “Tutor and Head of Department Social Science at the St Prosper College, Ho” who graduated from KNUST sometime in 2009. This discovery made me to find out whether the NDC could blame anybody should the investigations of the three petitions lead to the removal of all three Commissioners and how that was going to be an achievement for the NDC.

Certainly, the NPP would then appoint all the three new Commissioners should the independent Committees investigating the allegations contained in the three petitions find all three Commissioners guilty of the charges against them. What is the political utility to the NDC if the Committees do find even the two Deputy Commissioners guilty as charged?

So, I asked my NDC colleagues the question, why did the defence of the Chairperson get the NDC so incensed that their surrogates decided to throw out the baby with the bath water by petitioning against their two other appointees? This could not have happened in the founding NDC because the incompetent and massive looser John Dramani Mahama would never have had the chance to fool the youth to kill all their parents and be without experienced elders to consult for strategic and tactical decision-making.

We are now working in the NDC kingdom without fathers which John Mahama created, and with which he massively lost the elections. Should all the three Commissioners or one or two be removed from office, the NDC can only have itself to blame for its predicament and not any witch-hunters from the NPP after being petitioners ourselves to facilitate the possible removal of all three Commissioners.

I hope the NDC has learnt bitter lessons from the John Mahama Government’s inept looting and losing leadership style and wish to God that we can collectively reorganize the party to instil that level of integrity and honour that will give us a chance in the nearest future to return to lead a true incorruptible social democratic Government of the people and for the people of Ghana.

Martin A. B. K. Amidu (Citizens Vigilance for Justice)

3 rd August 2017

–

By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post NDC appointed Charlotte Osei to rig election – Martin Amidu appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to the party’s Director of Elections, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, they have uncovered a major security breach at Innolink, the company printing the ballot papers for Greater Accra and Volta Regions.

The party alleged that the plate used for printing the ballot papers was sneaked out by an official of Innolink to be given to an unknown person, which they say is unlawful and a breach of the process.

Speaking to Citi News, Mr. Korsah said they have lodged a complaint with the police, but called for a full scale investigation into the matter.

He narrated that, “the report was that the production manager, one Anderson, had handed over a production plate to a gentleman who entered and moved out with the plate.”

“According to my agent, the plate that he saw was exactly the size of the presidential ballot. I immediately requested that he hand over the phone to the production manager, Anderson, so I could inquire about this.”

“When I got him on the phone, he admitted giving the plate to a gentleman who took it out of the place. Except that for over 10 minutes, he could not confirm or tell me exactly where the plate was, but after pushing for 10 minutes he admitted it.”

Mr. Korsah was adamant that NPP would not let this allegation slip under the radar.

“This story is not going to die. At the very least, we may have to destroy all those ballots there because it seems to suggest that it is hugely compromised. So we may have to work at it… everybody is alarmed, concerned so we cannot treat this story lightly.”

At the time of this report officials of Innolink were not available for comments.

NPP’s other allegation of rigging

The NPP had earlier requested an emergency meeting of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), over what it described as an illegality; the printing of pink sheets without serial numbers.

The NPP said it identified the anomaly when it visited Aero Vote, the company contracted to print the pink sheets for this year’s elections.

However, the Electoral Commission (EC) dismissed these allegations describing them as false claims.

Describing the allegations as regrettable, the Commission said the NPP would have been better served raising concerns with it rather than “rush to the media with unfounded claims of non-existent plans to manipulate election results.”

–

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/Kojo Agyemang/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post NPP alleges rigging again; raises alarm over printing of presidential ballots appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Some New Patriotic Party (NPP) executives, have on different platforms, claimed there’s a grand scheme to ensure President Mahama’s re-election.

But the President at a rally in Funsi in the Wa East Constituency of the Upper West Region, rubbished those claims, describing them as absurd nonsense.

“…If you notice, in the run up to the election, there has been a consistent criticism of the Electoral Commission. Indeed they have said the most unspeakable things about the Chairman of the Electoral Commission and that is all preparing the minds of their supporters for when they lose, so when they lose, they can blame the Electoral Commission as not being neutral.”

“Some of them have gone to the extent of saying the Electoral Commission is preparing to rig the elections for John Mahama. What absurd nonsense?Ghana’s Electoral system is one of the best in the world. Note my words, not in Africa , in the world because it has inherent instruments for guaranteeing its integrity.”

Stop harrasing EC Boss

This is not the first time the President has strongly defended the Electoral Commission and its Chairperson, Charlotte Osei.

He did same in April this year [2016] when he called on political parties to stop harassing the Chairperson and rather cooperate with the Commission to purge the voters register.

“We have some political parties that have a tradition of haranguing and just harassing the commission and I think that must stop. Leave the commission in peace to do its work, it’s done it before, so let them do the work,” he charged.

His plea followed calls from pressure groups including the opposition NPP , for the Chairperson to implement reforms  recommended by the Supreme Court.

–

By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah

The post Election rigging allegations ‘absurd nonsense’ – Mahama appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking during a meeting with the Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs on Wednesday, Mrs. Osei assured that the reforms have made the process full proof against any form of rigging.

[contextly_sidebar id=”FvuHnierm71EKO1stmEqIq36RxkeQEPa”]“There is no way that all of us at the Electoral Commission can change the results. It is really impossible. For you to change the results of the election, you have to be at 29,000 polling stations, change the results on the sheets of all the party agents who are there.”

“Then you have to run to the constituency collation centers, change the results on the sheets again and  change the results on the agents’ sheets before you now come and declare it at the head office,” Mrs. Osei added.

“I will need Superman’s powers to be able to do that,” The EC Chair joked.

Biometric Verification Wahala

Mrs. Osei also revealed that every polling station will be allocated two biometric verification devices to avert the challenges that plagued the 2012 elections as a result of breakdown of many of the machines.

Some polling stations across the country were forced to continue with voting the following day after the EC sent new verification machines to support the process.

“If one has a problem or breaks down, we will switch to the second one. There is a backup we will bring from the constituency level to support that polling station,” the EC Chair explained.

In addition, Mrs. Osei noted that the EC has also increased the number of polling stations to 29,000 to ensure that no polling station is going to have more than 850 voters.

“The reason being that we want fewer people on the register of every polling station so there is less pressure on the machines and less pressure on the personnel. Hopefully voting will finish earlier and we an finish the collation earlier and declare the results.”

–

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post I’ll need Superman’s powers to rig elections – Charlotte Osei appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.