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Charlotte Osei sues lawyer for "faceless" petitioners

Some staff of the Electoral Commission [EC] of Ghana on July 19 filed a petition against the Chairperson calling for a full-scale investigation into alleged misconduct and abuse of office

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According to her, "This is certainly not a new practice in Ghana’s public service. Indeed, the office of the Chief of Staff provided and continues to provide vehicles for many government institutions and appointees," Mrs Osei stated in a 17 paged document response to a petition by unknown concerned staff of the EC through their lawyer to the President for her impeachment."

Some staff of the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana on July 19 filed a petition against the Chairperson calling for a full-scale investigation into alleged misconduct and abuse of office on her part.

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The concerned staff in a petition claim her decision to cancel a contract awarded to Superlock Technologies Limited (STL), a company contracted to supply and manage Biometric Voter Registration machines (BVRs) and the Biometric Voter Devices (BVDs), as well as her directive for the payment of $76,000 to IT firm, Dream Oval, were fraudulent and hence she should be removed from office.

Charlotte Osei following the petition,  ordered her legal team to consider suing the petitioners for defamation and also demanded their names are made known to her.

The suit was filed at the High Court on Tuesday, July 25.Mrs Osei had declared her intention to sue the faceless staff for defamation and requested the lawyer produce their names.

She said: "As a point of order with regard to the recent unfounded accusations leveled at Mrs Charlotte Osei in her capacity as Chairperson of the EC Ghana, Mr Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang is not a staff member of the Commission.

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"Whilst he claims to act on behalf of ‘Concerned Staff’ of the Commission, he has not made clear who those ‘staff’ indeed are."

Mrs Osei explained that this was of particular importance as he Mr Opoku-Agyemang had previously introduced himself at another forum as counsel for Ms Georgina Opoku-Amankwaa, the Deputy Chairperson Corporate Services of the Commission.

Below are the reliefs being sought by Charlotte Osei:

i. A declaration that the statements that Plaintiff is “managerially and administratively inept” because Plaintiff has no respect for the organisational structure of the Electoral Commission, “has poor human relations not befitting of any leader in public space”, has “unilaterally transferred District Electoral Officers perceived to be pro-NPP”, “…polarized the Commission along political lines” and disunited its members out at paragraphs 11, 12, 13, 20, 21 and 26 of the petition attached to Defendant’s letter conveying the petition to his Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana are defamatory of Plaintiff.

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i. A declaration that the statements that Plaintiff is “managerially and administratively inept” because Plaintiff has no respect for the organisational structure of the Electoral Commission, “has poor human relations not befitting of any leader in public space”, has “unilaterally transferred District Electoral Officers perceived to be pro-NPP”, “…polarized the Commission along political lines” and disunited its members out at paragraphs 11, 12, 13, 20, 21 and 26 of the petition attached to Defendant’s letter conveying the petition to his Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana are defamatory of Plaintiff.

ii. A declaration that the statements that Plaintiff “has constituted herself into the Commission’s Tender Review Committee contrary to the Procurement Act”, “unilaterally awarded a contract of about $25,000 to a South African company…to change and re-develop the Commission’s logo under the guise of rebranding…” set out at paragraphs 6, 18, 23, 27 of the petition attached to Defendant’s letter conveying the petition to His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana are defamatory of Plaintiff.

iii. A declaration that the statements that Plaintiff nearly pushed Ghana “to the precipices” by her “political posture” prior to the conduct of the 2016 General Elections, has a political bias and prejudice against Ghanaians who support the New Patriotic Party (NPP) by antagonizing the “NPP prior to the 2016 general elections brought embarrassment to the Commission” through her arrogant posture set out at paragraphs 3, 4, 14, 19 of the petition attached to Defendant’s letter conveying the petition to his Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana are defamatory of Plaintiff.

iv. A declaration that the statements that Plaintiff “has been engaging in cronyism by awarding contracts to the tune of $14,310,961.00 to her cronies” the value of which contract sums exceed the approved threshold of the PPA the details of which statements are set out at paragraph 8 of the petition attached to Defendant’s letter conveying the contents of the petition to His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana are defamatory of Plaintiff.v. General damages for libel against Defendant for publishing and or causing to be published the aforesaid words of and concurring in Plaintiff.

vi. An order of the Honourable Court directed at the Defendant to publish a retraction and an apology with the same prominence as the defamatory words on his Facebook page as well as one publication in the Daily Graphic.

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vii. An injunction restraining the Defendant whether by himself, his servants or agents or otherwise from authorizing permitting and/or causing to be published the same or similar words defamatory of the Plaintiffs.

viii. Costs including lawyer’s fees.

Click to read Charlotte Osei denying the allegations: Charlotte Osei debunks allegations

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