Adjenim Boateng Adjei
Dismissed Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Adjenim Boateng Adjei, has alleged that the Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, admitted that his outfit broke the law after an audit last year uncovered procurement breaches.
The audit that the former PPA boss refers to concerns the procurement of some vehicles for regional officers of the Ghana Audit Service, a transaction that cost GH¢6.1 million.
Speaking on Good Evening Ghana on Thursday, November 19, 2020, Mr Adjei told show host, Paul Adom-Otchere, that after a report was prepared by the PPA, Mr Domelevo as head of the Audit Service, conceded that his office breached the procurement rules and asked the PPA to ratify the anomaly, an appeal the PPA Board rejected.
“These contraventions were duly acknowledged and accepted at the exit meeting and confirmed in writing per a letter by the Audit Service to the Chief Executive of PPA dated 8th November [2019]. He wrote to PPA for ratification and the board rejected it,” Mr Adjei stated.
The sacked PPA boss made allegations against Mr Domelevo to drive home his point that an investigative documentary that led to his eventual dismissal was masterminded by Mr Domelevo to retaliate the findings the PAA audit made about the Audit Service.
Nature of the alleged procurement breach by the Audit Service
Mr Adjei said the Auditor-General’s Office awarded the contract to procure the vehicles even though the procurement sum was beyond the threshold of the relevant approving authority.
“If you have a threshold of GH¢100,000 value of procurement, it stays with the Head of Entity, if you have anything say between GHS100,000 and GH¢1 million, it stays with the Entity Tender Committee (ETC)…beyond the 1 million, it then goes to the Central Tender Review Committee.
“So if you have any procurement that is beyond GH¢1 million and you constitute an internal ETC to approve and award the contract without recourse to the Central Tender Review Committee, you commit a very serious offence because it means that the approving authority that is giving approval to that procurement does not have the legitimacy to do so,” he explained.
The value of Domelevo’s procurement is GH¢6.1 million, although the threshold of the ETC that approved his procurement was GH¢1 million.
“The audit also revealed that days or weeks after they had awarded the contract, somebody might have just drawn their attention…so they quickly rushed to write to the Central Tender Review Committee for them to give concurrent approval. But the Central Tender Review Committee does not have the right for retrospective approval,” Mr Adjei stressed.
According to him, Mr Domelevo then kick-started a campaign to tarnish his image.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in a letter dated Friday, October 30, 2020, terminated his appointment.
The decision follows the submission of a report to President Akufo-Addo by Commission on Human Rights and Administration Justice (CHRAJ) on a conflict of interest investigation initiated against Mr Adjei.
A report issued by the CHRAJ has noted that Mr Boateng Adjei was unable to explain the volumes of cash that passed through his bank account with the Stanbic Bank after his appointment.
Mr Adjei claims CHRAJ failed to give him a fair hearing.
