My work embarrassing government – Auditor General

The Auditor-General, Daniel Domelevo has stated that President Akufo-Addo instructed him to take his annual leave because his work is embarrassing his government.

According to him, the decision to instruct him to go on leave was not taken in good faith, but he will follow the instruction out of reverence for the president’s office.

“I think it is necessary, however, to bring to the attention of the high office of the President a few matters relevant to our constitutional governance, due process and the rule of law,” his letter to the president’s Secretary, Nana Asante Bediatuo, read.

According to Mr Domelevo comments by the Chairman of the Audit Service Board who incidentally works in the office of the Senior Minister and other related commentary suggests that his work was embarrassing the Akufo-Addo government.

He says Akufo-Addo's selective nature of asking him to proceed on leave when many other appointees are still at post suggests the president acted in bad faith.

The following are some 3 times in recent past the auditor general put the government on its toes:

Auditor- General uncover cases of payment for no work done

In an audit report on Capital Projects funded through District Development Facilities in 30 Districts Assemblies compiled by the Auditor-General, findings on payment and work done showed that monies were disbursed for non-executed works.

“For example, the pavement for work at the taxi station of Ho barracks was paid in full when only 50% of the work was done,” the report noted

Domelovo detected GHC 564m to ‘ghost’ workers on MDAs payroll

The Auditor General’s Department uncovered that the public purse had lost an amount of GHC 564.2 million to ‘ghost’ names on the payroll of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). These unaccounted for employees make up GHC 467.6 million of the total unearned salaries. According to the report, the various MDAs include Ministries of Education, Finance, Energy, Defence, Communications, Information, Health, the Interior, Railway Development and Foreign Affairs.

Mr Domelevo in reaction to inconsistencies in the payroll declared his intention to surcharge the heads of these MDAs under whose watch the losses occurred.

Mr Domelevo advised GoG to ignore salary arrears payment requests by the Forum for Former Members of Parliament

Mr Domelevo rejected an audit verification for the payment of the salary arrears of the Forum for Former Members of Parliament (FFMP), noting that their request is invalid and amounts to a conflict of interest because most of the beneficiaries will be members of the current administration, including the President and the Chief of Staff.

“Apart from the fact that the claim from the FFMP is invalid because the Chinery Hesse Committee report for 2005 to 2009 was rejected, it may also amount to an abuse of power or conflict of interest to make additional payment (20% salary increase per annum for 4 years) to former MPs (covering a period of 10 to 14 years ago) especially when some of them are now the executive,” his letter to the Chief of Staff read.