Dear Madam Charlotte Osei,
I am a Concerned Ghanaian working diligently in the fourth realm of the State. My work brings me into contact with policies and laws that affect and shape society.
But one issue that keeps burning like coals on my heart has been the recent back and forth about the filing fees for presidential and parliamentary candidates hoping to avail themselves of their legitimate rights to contest in the December 7 elections.
My concern is not the conventional argument about the astronomical high fees that places arbitrary barriers on the way of Ghanaians to assume what is lawfully theirs to take; no matter how legitimate it sounds.
Mine is to do with the marginalized and disadvantaged whose plight is being made worse off with the insensitive nature of this blanket fee charged every candidate.
I felt with the recent argument about affirmative action and the protection and empowerment of persons with disability, the electoral commission led by a motherly hearted woman in the person of your able self, Madam Charlotte Kesson Smith Osei would have applied some price discrimination in this direction. But No. All are same paying the same fees.
The political parties all showed sensitivity to women, the youth and persons with disability in charging filing fees for their parliamentary and presidential primaries. They slashed their filing fees to as much as half the amount, an act which I personally applauded. The New Patriotic Party in particular went ahead albeit unsuccessfully to protect the seats occupied by incumbent women parliamentarians; an action which was vehemently opposed to by some male aspirants.
Madam please as the popular Akan maxim goes, ‘Sankofa Yenkyiri’. Just the same way your office came up with these fees which are being challenged in court, I beg of you to kindly consider this plea to do something about this.
To further appeal to your conscience, through my mother Davida Charlotte Heathcote, my late grandmother Charlotte Grant and one person who helped me gain roots in the media, Charlotte Nana Oye Walton Ankrah, I have come to identify the word caring and sensitive with people called Charlotte.
Please redeem the image of the Charlottes. Redeem the motherliness you carry in your heart. Redeem the fight of the civil society organisations which you have served before, in the fight for affirmative action and protection of PWDs and redeem the constitution which you have sworn to uphold as a legal luminary.
Any consideration to slash the fees for this segment of our population will be eternally appreciated and trust me Mum, God will bless you if you did.
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