Daniel Domelevo
Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo and four others have initiated a contempt application against the Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, for his refusal to file a response to their appeal against his decision to surcharge them.
According to the application filed before an Accra High Court, the Auditor General’s refusal to file the required documents and reply to their notice and grounds of appeal within the mandatory stipulated time dictated by the rules of the High Court constitutes contempt of the court where the appeal was filed.
The application is, therefore, seeking an order committing Mr. Domelevo to prison or in the alternative impose any other punishment that the court may deem just and proper.
It also wants consequential orders including the setting aside of Mr. Domelevo’s “impugned” decision against them as well as any other orders the court may deem fit.
Senior Minister Osafo-Maafo and the four officials from the Ministry of Finance, namely Michael Ayesu, Abraham Kofi Tawiah, Eva Asselba Mends, and Patrick Nomo have appealed against the decision of the Auditor General to surcharge them over the Kroll Associate investigation.
According to an appeal filed before an Accra High Court, the Senior Minister and the other appellants are insisting that the Auditor General acted “unreasonably, capriciously and maliciously” towards them in blatant violation of his duty as a public officer when he refused to inspect and study the evidence of work done by Kroll Associates UK Limited as requested by him (Osafo-Maafo).
The appeal is also challenging the investigations carried out by Mr. Domelevo as the Senior Minister suggested that the Auditor General does not have the powers to investigate and make findings of breaches of the procurement law.
Genesis
The Auditor General has claimed that the Mr. Osafo-Maafo and the Finance Ministry have colluded to pay UK firm, Kroll and Associates Limited, $1 million for no evidence of work done.
The UK firm in 2017 was contracted by the Senior Minister to recover assets from identified wrongdoers, among others.
According to the Senor Minister, the firm had done the work it was contracted to do and that there was enough evidence of work done.
But the Auditor General later claimed that after audit, there was no evidence of work done by Kroll and Associates Limited and yet huge sums of money were paid to the company.
He subsequently imposed a disallowance and surcharge on the Senior Minister and four others involved in the contract.
Appeal
Not satisfied with the decision of the Auditor
General to disallow and surcharge him and four others, the appellants filed an
appeal against the decision before an Accra High Court.
They are insisting that the determination by the Auditor General that the payment of GH¢4,869,421.87 without approval from Parliament and the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) and thus offended Article 181 of the Constitution violates the appellants rights of hearing as same did not form part of either the audit observations issued to the Ministry of Finance or the final report of the Auditor General laid before Parliament.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak