The Chairman of Parliament’s Special Budget Committee, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu has revealed that suspected internal squabbles within the Electoral Commission has taken a toll on some critical duties it must perform.
The Majority Leader, who heads the Special Budget Committee which has oversight responsibility of the EC, indicated that the Commission at this time must be retooling its IT department while taking stock of the last election but the alleged frosty relationship between its Chairperson and the management and staff of the Vommission has stalled these duties.
“We have a pack, a whole lot of those equipment that may not be able to work and the IT section of the Commission is out of joint. Equipment that were procured were suppose to last for a period. Equipment in the IT section require replacement maybe every five years but it has been there for close to ten years now and nothing is happening. These are non election related matters that they should be attending to now. Preparatory to what may happen next. Now we have some referendum proposed in some regions. What happened to those equipment that will be taken there. They are in a state of disrepair so those things should be attended to now but as we speak because of their internal squabbles, they are not attending to those matters,” he complained.
The EC chair has been under fire in the past week due to a petition to the President asking for her removal.
Employees of the Commission have accused her of financial malfeasance and cronyism among others, which she has denied.
She has indicated that she will respond to these allegations in due course.
On Thursday, Charlotte Osei revealed she would take legal action against the aggrieved employees seeking her removal.
She said the petitioners made unsubstantiated claims to damage her reputation.
In a letter written by her lawyers, to the lawyer of the petitioners, she demanded the list of the names of workers who had made the claims for her removal.
She said this was “to enable us commence legal action against them for the defamatory statements contained in their petition failing which our client will be constrained to proceed against you alone as defendant in the suit our client intends to commence against them since you are to all intents and purposes, their agent.”
The President has confirmed receipt of the said petition seeking Ms Osei’s removal. He has however neither commented or taken any action so far.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
