Did President Akufo-Addo rely on forged documents to sack Domelevo?

In his letter directing Daniel Yao Domelevo to permanently vacate his position as Auditor-General, President Akufo-Addo cited a discovery by the board of the Audit Service as the basis of his decision.

The president said per information available to him from the Audit Service Board, Domelevo’s tenure as Auditor-General should have ended in 2020.

“The attention of the President of the Republic has been drawn to records and documents made available to the Office by the Audit Service, that indicate that your date of birth is 1 June 1960 and that in accordance with article 199(1) of the Constitution, your date of retirement as Auditor General was 1 June 2020.

"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."

Daniel Yao Domelevo’s age was revealed by the Audit Service Board in a letter asking him not to return from his 167-day forced leave as they consider him to have retired.

The evidence supporting this claim of the board is Domelevo’s records at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

"Records at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) completed and signed by you indicate your date of birth as 1st June 1960 when you joined the scheme on 1st October 1978. The records show that you stated your tribe as Togolese and a non-Ghanaian. That your hometown is Agbatofe.

“On 25th October 1992, you completed and signed a SSNIT Change of Beneficiary Nomination form, stating your nationality as a Ghanaian and your hometown as Ada in the Greater Accra Region. The date of birth on your Ghanaian passport number A45800, issued on 28th February 1996 is 1st June 1961. That place of birth is stated as Kumasi, Ashanti Region.”

Domelevo protested and explained that there might be an error somewhere but his defence could not convince the board neither did it convince the president.

Though he is no more, the campaign to taint his reputation has not gone down with a photo of his SSNIT registration circulating on social media.

The certificate upon first look confirms the allegations the board is making but with knowledge of how SSNIT generate numbers for clients, one realizes that something is amiss.

Professor Kwaku Azar, a US-based Ghanaian law lecturer has spotted the strange record and in a social media post, raised awareness about what allegedly appears to be a deliberate forgery of Domelevo’s SSNIT document.

He writes “ordinarily I will not comment on this document because I believe it was unlawfully procured and published on FB. But I feel duty-bound by GOGO to do so.

Those who posted it wants you to focus on 01-06-1960 for obvious reasons. But let us do a little bit of forensic auditing:

All SSNIT numbers tell a story. The SSNIT number here is E106106010014. To the ordinary eyes, this means nothing. But to the GOGO eye, this means:

E = Eastern Region 10 = District 10 61 = 1961 06 = June 01 = 1

The cardholder was born on June 1, 1961.

In the haste to destroy, whoever altered the DOB failed to alter the SS#. Ordinarily, I will call for a full probe to identify those behind this plot. But this is Ghana. I won’t waste my time!!”





GhanaWeb checks

Checks by GhanaWeb with some staff of SSNIT confirm that the number generation process as explained by Kwaku Azar is perfectly true.

What, we can, however, not vouch for is the authenticity of the document upon which Kweku Azar made this jaw-dropping discovery.