Daniel Domelevo and Yaw Osafo-Maafo
An Accra High Court has upheld an appeal filed by Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo and four officials of the Ministry of Finance against the decision of the Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, to surcharge them to refund an amount of GH¢1 million to the state.
The court presided over by Justice Afia Serwaa Asare-Botwe also upheld another appeal by Kroll Associates UK Limited against the issuance of surcharge and disallowance of over GH¢4.8 million for no work done as reported by the Auditor General.
In its ruling, the court held that Mr. Domelevo in his hasty decision to issue the surcharge and disallowance “failed to abide by the well-known rule of natural justice of giving the appellants the opportunity to be heard.”
Different Appeals
Kroll Associates UK Limited last December filed an appeal against a disallowance and surcharge made against it by Mr. Domelevo for the payment of GH¢5,510,353.73 following an audit of the accounts of the Ministry of Finance.
Their grounds of appeal were that the Mr. Domelevo came to a wrong finding of facts when he concluded, in the absence of proof before him, that the contract given to the company had not been performed.
Mr. Osafo-Maafo, together with Michael Ayesu, Abraham Kofi Tawiah, Eva Esaaba Mends, and Patrick Nomo, all officers at the Ministry of Finance, also filed their appeal in December last year contesting the disallowance and surcharge of GH¢1 million imposed on them by Mr. Domelevo over the Kroll contract.
In the appeal, the Senior Minister and the other appellant insisted 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 also challenged 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.
Given that the issues complained about the reliefs sought by Kroll Associates Ltd and Mr. Osafo-Maafo and others were interlinked, the court after an agreement with the parties in the matter decided to consolidate the two cases.
Case Genesis
The Auditor General had claimed that 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 & Associates Limited, and yet huge sums of moneys were paid to the company.
Controversies
During the hearing of the case at the High Court, the report presented by Kroll & Associates for proof of work became a bone of contention and lawyers for the firm contested that the document was of security nature and per the terms of their agreement with the appointing authority, they could not disclose the content of the document.
The counsel for the Senior Minister subsequently made a copy of the document available to trial High Court and told the court that at the time Mr. Domelevo had disallowed and surcharged the Senior Minister and the others, they had written to inform him that the documents were available and he could inspect them.
Due to the nature of the document bordering on national security as pushed by counsel for the Senior Minister, the High Court referred the matter to the Supreme Court for direction as to whether those documents could be disclosed.
The Supreme Court was later told that the Auditor General’s office was prepared to inspect the documents available at the Senior Minister’s office to confirm work done and the court ordered that the Auditor General should go to the Senior Minister’s office to assess the documents.
However, Mr. Domelevo was subsequently directed by the President to proceed on his 167days of accumulated leave.
Acting Auditor General Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, after inspecting the documents, expressed satisfaction and the matter went back to the High Court.
Judgement
Justice Asare-Botwe, taking into consideration the grounds of appeal and the turn of events, held that “had the respondent (Auditor-General) not been hasty, and had the respondent’s office taken up the offer to inspect the documents which would be made available for inspection, the whole issue of whether or not work had been done would have been resolved without this convoluted tortuous legal battle.”
She held that Mr. Domelevo erred in issuing the disallowance and surcharge against the appellants without recourse to the inspection of the documents corroborating the work done.
It was the opinion of the court that Mr. Domelevo failed to abide by the rules of natural justice of giving the appellants the opportunity to be heard; hence, the appeals succeed on all grounds.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak