EC must get back to work – Outgoing US Ambassador

Mr. Robert Porter Jackson, outgoing Ambassador of the United States of America to Ghana said the country must work towards getting the Electoral Commission (EC) back in position to play its role as a neutral arbiter in the next elections.

He said the EC had been largely paralysed by the impeachment process against the former Chairperson and needed to get back to work.

Interacting with a section of the Ghanaian media before he proceeds on his retirement this week, Ambassador Jackson said the EC played a very important role in Ghana, thus the need to get it back to work.

“It plays a very important role in the country and it’s vital Ghana moves ahead, both with the process of creating new regions, that is if voters wish to do that, and with electing local and municipal officials, as well as preparing for the 2020 Parliamentary and Presidential elections,” he maintained.

Responding to a question on whether he was concerned about developments at the EC and the reactions by some opposition parties about the competence of the nominees for the job and its potential to create tensions when Ghana goes to the polls in 2020, he said he was confident, from what he knew about the EC Chairperson elect, Mrs. Jean Mensah, saying that, she was a good choice to head the EC.

“I know Jean Mensah, I respect her. I think that she, from what I know, is a good choice to head the EC. If the opposition, whether National Democratic Congress or other parties have concerns about her fitness for the job then they should bring those concerns up during the vetting process and let everyone have their say,” he stated.



He said it was important to make certain that everyone was satisfied with the people that the President had proposed, in order to get the commission back to work.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo on Monday nominated four persons to run the EC, following the removal from office of former chairperson Mrs Charlotte Osei and her two Deputies; Mr. Amadu Sulley and Mrs. Georgina Opoku Amankwah, after a committee set up to investigate petitions brought against them recommended their removal.



The President thus appointed Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensah, Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) as Chairperson of the Commission, Mr. Samuel Tettey, current Director of Electoral Services at the EC and Dr Eric Asare Bossman-Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, as deputies, with Ms. Adwoa Asuama Abrefa, a corporate legal practitioner, as a member of the Commission.