President Akufo-Addo has kicked against requests by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and other citizens demanding him to reinstate the Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo after he was ordered to take his accumulated leave.
The president has indicated that the basis on which the requests are being made were taken into consideration prior to the decision, thus, bringing back the Auditor-General on those bases makes the requests impossible.
“The president encourages people to be citizens and not spectators and therefore, your petition is welcome and its contents have duly been noted.
“However, the position of the President as contained in the letter dated July 3, 2020, from this Office to the Auditor-General remains the same,” a statement signed by Secretary to the President Nana Asante Bediatuo read.
President Akufo-Addo last month ordered the Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo to take an accumulated leave of 123 days, which was further extended to 167 days.
Although the President justified his actions with sections 20 (1) and 31 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), the decision has been one that has received massive backlash from some members of the public including the Coalition of CSOs in the country.
The act, according to the Coalition, threatens the independence of the Auditor-General and downplays Ghana’s effort to fight corruption.
Subsequently, London-based Ghanaian Korieh Duodu, and Lolan Sagoe-Moses on July 8, 2020, petitioned president Akufo-Addo to reinstate the Auditor-General but the president insists he cannot grant any of the requests.
“The arguments made in your petition were considered prior to the President taking the decision to request Daniel Domelevo to take his accumulated leave from 1st July 2020.
Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
I don't see the point of fighting the leave order at all. Anybody who is fighting corruption must know that there will be a pushback. What you do, if you're interested in successfully fighting corruption from your official position, is to legally and administratively guard the position from being upstaged. You do that by jealously following the rules and regulations affecting your office. You cannot fight an illegality by another act of illegality, no matter how insignificant your illegality might appear to you. The reason is, other persons decide on applications of sanctions on an illegality, not the perpetrator. Therefore if anybody intends to frustrate your genuine efforts at fighting an illegality, such a person will look for your own instances of illegality to fight you, legally and with good effect. Imagine this gentleman had frequently taken his annual leave as good corporate governance practices would dictate, and had encouraged and supported his staff to do same, and not accumulated months of them, would the government have had this point as a reason to get him out? I believe that other government employees are also not taking their annual leave, and that is bad. But that cannot be a defense to you being asked to take yours in any case. A mandamus could be filed to compel the government to ask all eligible employees to do that which they've asked Domevelo to do, but not to rescind a decision which does not breach any law, in effect. Politics is An interesting game and must be played within reasonable rules. Honestly, the rules support the president here, not the auditor general. He should have been aware of the mine fields even as he went out hunting. As it stands, there are not any ethically or morally satisfactory answers to the questions he has brought on himself. Why did you not take your leave but accumulate them? Why are you refusing to take the leave when your supervising authority asks you to? What other 'small rules' are you violating even though you hold others to follow all rules? His answers could be interesting.
Ghc 444, 846, 663.00. that's how much money we approved for the EC to conduct this exercise. Ndc MPs simply boycotted. Do you really think we'd allow a Togolese man auditing us afterwards?? I say good riddance. Akuamoah sounds more comfortable than Dormelevo. Ndc can go to hell.