President Nana Akufo-Addo
The Presidency, Jubilee House has written an open letter to the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations Against Corruption, laying bare the circumstances leading to appointment and retirement of former Auditor General, Daniel Yao Domelevo.
The 21 pages letter, signed by the Secretary to President Nana Akufo-Addo, Nana Bediatuo Asante, was in direct response to sharp criticisms on the government’s “constructive” retirement of Mr Domelevo.
In the letter, Government pointed out emphatically that the discussion in the public domain regarding Mr Domelevo’s retirement “focuses on unfounded allegations that Government had targeted Mr Domelevo and wanted him out of office at all cost.”
“This narrative, pushed by persons who should know better in civil discourse of this nature, has been based on untruths, deliberate misconstruction of the facts and complete disregard for the rule of law that we, as Ghanaians, have subscribed to.”
“It is in view of the above that the Office of the President has found it necessary to respond to the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations Against Corruption, to correct the misconceptions bandied around in the public domain, and to give the Ghanaian people, who deserve a public discourse based on accurate facts, an opportunity to discern for themselves the true picture in this matter,” the open letter said.
It would be recalled that Coalition of Civil Society Organizations Against Corruption had described as unfair, the action of President Nana Akufo-Addo and the Audit Service Board to send Auditor General, Daniel Yao Domelevo on “forced retirement.”
In a statement dated March 10, 2021, the CSOs indicated emphatically that 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.
“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 indicated.
The CSOs expressed the belief that Mr Domelevo is the choice for the job, indicating that “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.”
What happened?
It would be recalled that Ghanaian President, Akufo-Addo, joined Ghana’s 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.”
Resumption
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