The OneGhana Movement is gravely concerned about what appears to be a clear case of witch-hunting to prevent arguably one of only a handful of Ghana’s long-standing celebrated anti-corruption fighters in public service from doing his work.
The latest twist to the hunt is as ridiculous as it is a most shameless act against the Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo who was extra judicially forced to take 167 days leave from work, at a critical point in time in the case against then Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo over the Kroll scandal.
The letters of queries issued by the Board of the Audit Service (expired, acting, or substantive) at this time, cannot be elevated to any judicial orders preventing Mr. Domelevo from fully exercising his constitutional mandate even if for only the next three months.
In fact, even if the lame suggestion of a crime by the Board were pursued, such a pursuit would not stop him from exercising his mandate unless a court so decided, or the President acted through due process of law in that direction.
We note that Mr. Domelevo has been duly celebrated at home and abroad by individuals and organizations, including a World Bank report on corruption acknowledging him as improving the Audit Service’s image and its ability to execute its mandate as only one of three of the best accountability institutions in the world. This was at a time when foreign missions publicly expressed deep concern about what appeared to be an onslaught on integrity institutions and individuals fighting corruption in Ghana.
We are reminded that even Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry John Rawlings had their citizenship questioned by their detractors and urge Mr. Domelevo to be unshaken by the laughable dirtdigging to smear his enviable reputation.
In the case of BRUCE v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL in 1967, our courts noted the fact, which has not changed much even today, that that “Registers of baptism are evidence of date and place of baptism … but not of the date or place of birth. . . “may be strictly applicable in England where provision was made from early times for the registration of births of children. It should obviously not be applied too strictly in a country in which . . . “everything, the Native Law itself included, depends on oral tradition.”
It is obvious that several decades ago when young Domelevo effected the corrections now being used to further a sinister agenda to keep him out of office, he did so as honestly as some other Ghanaians may have done.
Consequently, except by any process of law, Mr. Domelevo must be left to serve his full term and is more than worthy of his lawful entitlements upon retirement. We recommend an extension of his stay within the permissible limits of law, if any, as he is most worthy having worked to improve the image and standing of the institution and is on record as the only Auditor-General to have fought and won to recover millions of cedis for the State.
Signed
Governing Board
OneGhana Movement
Dated: 3rd March 2021