Daniel Yao Domelevo
The Coalition of Civil Society Organizations Against Corruption has condemned the decision of Government to send Auditor General, Daniel Yao Domelevo on “forced retirement.”
In a statement, the CSOs said Mr Domelevo was “unfairly targeted.”
“The Coalition believes that the manner in which the questions regarding Mr. Domelevo’s date of birth, which formed the basis of the President’s letter, were not handled in accordance with the constitutional directive in Article 23 that administrative actions should be handled fairly, reasonably and in compliance with the due process of law,” the CSOs said in a statement.
“The coordinated actions of the Office of the President and the Audit Service Board Chair on this matter further confirms our belief that Mr. Domelevo has been unfairly targeted,” the statement said.
The CSOs believed Mr Domelevo is the right man for the job, saying “Through his diligence and commitment to protecting the public purse, Auditor-General Domelevo successfully recovered for the State tens of millions of Cedis in unauthorized spending or misappropriated funds. For instance, in 2018, the Office of the Auditor- General, leveraging its surcharge and disallowance powers, successfully recovered a total of GH¢67.32milion (about US $11.7million) into government coffers.”
“Under his leadership, the Office of the Auditor General implemented an electronic data system to handle declarations made by public officers with respect to their assets and liabilities, as is required of them by Chapter 24 of the 1992 Constitution and the Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and Disqualification) Act, 1998 (Act 550). Through this initiative, the Office of the Auditor-General is able generate and maintain an up-to- date database of eligible public officers and to prompt them to make a declaration. It has additionally simplified the process for declaring assets and liabilities. While the legal regulatory framework for asset declaration of public officers still requires significant reform, Auditor-General Domelevo deserves commendation for this initiative.”
It would be recalled that President, Nana Akufo-Addo, joined the Audit Service Board in forcing Mr Domelevo into retirement.
On March 3, 2021, the President through his Secretary, Nana Bediatuo Asante, wrote a letter to Mr Domelevo, informing him that per Records from the Audit Service, he (Domelevo) was deemed to be on retirement.
“The attention of the President of the Republic has been drawn to Records and documents made available to this Office by the Audit Service, that indicate that your date of birth is 1st June, 1960, and that in accordance with article 199 (1) of the Constitution, your date of retirement as Auditor-General was 1st June, 2020,” the letter from the Presidency addressed to Mr Domelevo read.
The letter signed by Mr Bediatuo Asante, read further: “based on this information, the President is of the view that you have formally left office. Mr Johnson Akuamoa-Asiedu will continue to act as Auditor-General until the President appoints a substantive Auditor General.”
Mr Domelev returned to post on March 3, 2021, after his 167 days mandatory leave.
His return to post was despite the fact that his retirement age is being contested by the Audit Service Board.
Mr Domelevo started his mandatory leave on July 1, 2020, and ended it on Tuesday, March 2, 2021.
The Audit Service Board on Tuesday, March 2, 2021, issued a statement, saying Mr Domelevo is deemed to have retired in June 2020 due to some anomalies in his personal records.
In a series of letters between the Chairman of the Audit Service Board, Prof. Edward Dua Agyeman and Mr Domelevo, the Auditor-General was asked to explain the detected anomalies in his records or have some actions taken against him.
In a statement, the Audit Service Board alleged that records at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) which were believed to have been provided by Mr Domelevo revealed that his date of birth was 1960 when he joined the scheme on October 1, 1978.
The records made available by the Board further showed the hometown of Mr. Domelevo is Agbetofe in Togo, meaning he is a non-Ghanaian. However, on October 25, 1993, some changes were believed to have been made to his records.
According to the Board, while Mr Domelevo’s date of birth changed to June 1, 1961, his hometown was now Ada in the Greater Accra Region.
However, Mr. Domelevo insisted that his grandfather was a native of Ada in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana but migrated to Togo and stayed at Agbetofe.
Responding to the issue of his date of birth, Mr. Domelevo indicated that he noticed that 1960 was a mistake “when I checked my information in the baptismal register of the Catholic Church in Adeemmra.”
“I was born in Kumasi and my mother in less than three weeks after my birth, returned to Kwahu Adeemmra (with me) and I was baptized in June 1961,” according to him.
However, the Audit Service Board in a document dated March 2, 2021 noted that the explanation given makes the “date of birth and Ghanaian nationality even more doubtful and clearly establishes that you have made false statements contrary to law.”
By Melvin Tarlue