Daniel Domelevo
The Auditor-General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo says he will resume work in March and not January as it is being reported by a section of the populace following a directive from the Presidency for him to proceed on compulsory leave in July 2020.
“Please ignore the news circulating that I will be resuming work tomorrow, 11 January 2021. The 167 working days leave ends on 2nd March and I will resume work on the 3rd. Thanks,” Mr Domelevo said in a Facebook post.
Mr Domelevo’s 167-day accumulated leave has been shrouded in a lot of controversies.
It is recalled that on Monday, 29 June 2020, the Presidency in a statement directed Mr Domelovo to proceed on an accumulated leave of 123 days from 1 July.
He was asked to hand over to the Deputy Auditor-General, Mr Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu.
However, in a three-page letter dated July 3, 2020, and addressed to the Secretary to the President, Nana Bediatuo Asante, Mr Domelevo asked the President to reconsider his directive.
According to him, although he was aware that his work was “embarrassing the government”, the directive had “serious implications for the constitutional independence of the office of the Auditor-General.”
Mr Domelevo described the action of the President as unconstitutional.
Following his protestation letter, the Presidency increased his leave days from 123 to 167.
Many civil society organisations kicked against the President’s directive but all calls for the Presidency to rescind its decision hit death ears.
Occupy Ghana for example described the forced leave directive as a “grave error” and “regrettable unconstitutional act”.
A coalition of CSOs, which comprised the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and over 400 members of the CSOs Platform on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), petitioned the President to reverse the “proceed on leave” decision in the interest of accountability and democratic governance but the Presidency responded saying Domelevo’s leave directive cannot be reversed.