Charlotte Osei’s posture in Parliament, a sad day for democracy

The Member of Parliament for Subin has described as a "sad day for Ghana's democracy" the posture of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission Charlotte Osei, in her responses to questions from legislators when she appeared before the House on Wednesday.

 

Eugene Boakye Antwi believes the body language and demeanour of the Chairperson did not speak well of the Commission.

 

Mrs Osei appeared before Parliament to answer questions on how monies charged journalists for accreditation to cover the 2016 general elections and funds realised from the replacement of voter ID cards were expended.

 

During the Q&A session, the Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu asked the EC boss why internally generated funds [IGF] of the EC, were not transferred into the accounts of the State or captured in its budget presented to Parliament for approval before the 2016 elections. Charlotte Osei responded that is was an oversight.

 

She further stated that she could not give reasons for which the funds were not transferred because she has yet to speak to the person in charge and asked the house to let her go back and get an in-depth briefing on the issue for a possible reappearance.

Speaking to JoyFM, Mr Antwi said the EC boss was just using adjectives like "oversight" to suppress the information being elicited from her. He stated that the inability of the EC to capture the IGF in its budget before Parliament approved it, can either be false accounting or fraud, therefore, the EC Chair should have provided an answer to the question.

He lamented the actions of the Minority in defending the EC Chair and urged both Parliamentarian and Ghanaians not to politicise the issue, as some of the questions need urgent answers for the good of the EC and Ghana's democracy.

However speaking on the same platform, MP for Adaklu, Kwame Governs Agbodza, disagreed, saying there was nothing wrong with the posture of the EC Chair and she responded to the questions as expected by the house.

 

He said that there was no question of malfeasance and so the EC Chair's answer to the question on why the proceeds of their IGF were not paid into the consolidated fund was not a bad one.