Judge hands over $1 million Kroll Domelovo, Osafo-Maafo case to CJ upon request

A High Court judge has handed over two dockets containing the $1 million Kroll payment case involving Auditor General, David Domelovo, and Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo and four others to the Chief Justice, Kwasi Anin-Yeboah following his request of having them.

According to the Judge, Doreen Boakye Adjei, the request by Justice Annin-Yeboah follows a petition to the CJ by unknown persons concerning the two cases which are:

The Senior Minister and the four officials from the Ministry of Finance, namely Michael Ayesu, Abraham Kofi Tawiah, Eva Asselba Mends, and Patrick Nomo appealing against the decision of the Auditor General to surcharge them over the Kroll Associate investigation.

Subsequently, they cited Auditor General, David Domelovo for contempt of court for his refusal to file a response to their appeal against his decision to surcharge them.

Although her Lordship did not give further details, she noted that the cases will be on hold until further directives from the Chief Justice.

Background

The Auditor General has claimed that the Mr. Osafo-Maafo and the Finance Ministry have colluded to pay UK firm, Kroll and Associates Limited, $1 million for no evidence of work done.

The UK firm in 2017 was contracted by the Senior Minister to recover assets from identified wrongdoers, among others.



According to the Senor Minister, the firm had done the work it was contracted to do and that there was enough evidence of work done.

But the Auditor General later claimed that after audit, there was no evidence of work done by Kroll and Associates Limited and yet huge sums of money were paid to the company.

He subsequently imposed a disallowance and surcharge on the Senior Minister and four others involved in the contract.

Appeal

Not satisfied with the decision of the Auditor General to disallow and surcharge him and four others, the appellants filed an appeal against the decision before an Accra High Court.



They insisted that the determination by the Auditor General that the payment of GH¢4,869,421.87 without approval from Parliament and the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) and thus offended Article 181 of the Constitution violates the appellants rights of hearing as same did not form part of either the audit observations issued to the Ministry of Finance or the final report of the Auditor General laid before Parliament.