Osafo-Maafo behind EOCO’s investigation of Domelevo – NDC

The National Democratic Congress has accused Senior Minister, Osafo-Maafo of being the brain behind ongoing investigations into alleged wrongdoing against the Auditor General by the Economic and Organized Crime Office.

According to the party, this is all an attempt to remove him from office due to his uncompromising stance against corruption.

Addressing the media Monday morning, General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia noted that the objective of EOCO’s investigation is to relieve the Senior Minister of the pressure mounted on him by the A-G over his involvement in the $1m Kroll scandal and “prevent Mr. Dumelovo from doing further work that will shed more light on the deep-seated corruption the President is supervising.”

The Auditor-General, earlier this month, revealed on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show that he had surcharged the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, over $1m for entering into an agreement with a foreign company without following due process.

Mr Domelevo said Yaw Osafo-Maafo’s reply to his queries over a government contract with Kroll Associates UK to provide consultancy services was unsatisfactory.

Using a single-source procurement process, Kroll Associates, UK Ltd was contracted in 2017 to “review electronic evidence, identify assets abroad and manage a joint Civil and Criminal Assets recovery process.”

By September 2018, over $1 million equivalent to ¢4.86 million was made to the company as full payment for its services.

But the Auditor-General has challenged the arrangement. He explained that by Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, the contract required parliamentary approval because it involved a foreign company.

He also questioned the validity of a letter from the Senior Minister to show the contract also had approval from the Public Procurement Authority.

The NDC believes, this is the reason for EOCO’s investigations of the Auditor General.

“The Economic and Organized Crime Office, acting almost certainly at the behest of Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has extended a clandestine invitation to the Auditor General, ostensibly as part of investigations into a petition filed by an NPP hatchet man acting in concert with agents of the Akufo-Addo government.”

“It is worthy of note that Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo and Prof. Edward Duah Agyemang, Chairman of the Audit Service Board, who previously constituted a Cabinet Sub-Committee to investigate the NDC administration are collaborating to see to the removal of Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelevo because he has resisted direct interference with his audit work which is constitutionally insulated from such interferences,” the party’s General Secretary added.

The party which believes Yaw Osafo-Maafo would be out of office by now if president Akufo-Addo was indeed principled noted that “The witch-hunt of Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelevo reveals deep seated governmental complicity in the systematic rape of the resources entrusted into the care of President Akufo-Addo”.

Full statement: