Domelovo, Deputies Spent 3.3 Million On Foreign Travels And So What?

Few months ago the President asked Auditor General, Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelovo to proceed on leave and while he was on leave, the President went ahead to appoint an Acting Auditor-General which in itself has been argued in some quarters to be illegal because the constitution makes provision for an Auditor General and his deputies only.

Then this Acting Auditor-General goes ahead to okay the payments made to Kroll and Associates payment declared illegal by Mr. Domelovo for which reason a tussle between him and the senior minister escalated which is believed to be the reason why he was forced out.

While still on leave, the Audit Service Board contracts a private audit firm, K&A to audit the foreign travels of the embattled Auditor-General which in itself is another act of illegality because first of all, the only body that is mandated by law to audit the Audit Service for that matter the Auditor-General is the Parliament of Ghana. Secondly the Audit Service Board has no business interfering in the day-to-day administration of the Audit Service. They (the board and its chairman) are not principal spending officers, so on what authority did they commit the Audit Service to a contract with K&A?

Now K&A have gone on to audit him together with his deputies and established that they engaged in foreign travels. In their report which is out there in the public domain says that he (Domelovo) together with his deputies had spent 3.3 million Ghana cedi on foreign travels between January 1 2017 and June 30 2020 before he was asked to proceed on leave. That's all they found and they're propagating this report in an evil and infantile attempt to destroy a good man whose only crime was that he attempted to fight corruption.

First of all, he engaged in foreign travels and so what? Our Auditor General is an external auditor for the International Maritime Organization and the International Organization for Migration. He is also a member of AU and UN panel of auditors. So in executing some of these functions, were they expecting him to walk or fly with Harry Potter's broom?

Somewhere in the report it says that the man spent 18,000 dollars on a personal trip to Malawi but then goes ahead to say that they have no access to the appointment letter of Daniel Domelovo to ascertain whether or not he is entitled to such travels. This obviously should mean that he wasn't given an opportunity to answer to whatever quiries K&A raised. So why throw out such report? To paint him black?

This is why Mr. Domelovo himself said that "when you fight corruption, corruption will fight you back." In our case now we have the corruption King, President Akufo-Addo fighting back a man whose only wrong is that he attempted a fight against corruption in the Akufo-Addo government. Earlier in 2017 when the Auditor General had his lenses fixed on the Mahama administration, he was a celebrated hero. Today he is persona non grata because the Akufo-Addo government is untouchable. This is how weak our democracy is.

What makes matters more disappointing is that, cases before the Supreme Court to determine whether the President has the powers to force the Auditor General to proceed on so-called accumulated leave and also to determine the legality of the office of the so-called Acting Audito-General remains unheard since July 2020. In any serious democracy, the Supreme Court should be treating these cases with urgency but in Akufo-Addo's Ghana, it's business as usual. No one knows when these matters will be determined.

More irritating is the fact that seven people spending 3.3 million Ghana Cedi on foreign travel from January 2017 to June 2020 should amount to about 9,000 Ghana Cedi per month which doesn't come any close to what the President has spent on foreign travels including a trip to Madrid to watch the Champions League Final between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspurs on June 1, 2019. Now will the President be charitable enough to tell us how much (in total) he spent on foreign travels before COVID-19? It has been alleged that the President ever since he was sworn into office has refused to use our Presidential jet on his foreign travels. Records available indicates that, the President hires a private jet at 17,000 USD dollars per hour in all his foreign travels. Shouldn't we also know how much that amounts to?

As we get closer to December 7, remember that the only way to end this abuse of the constitution and attack on dempcracy is to vote Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP out. We have no other option. Many corruption fighters under the Akufo-Addo administration have come under serious attack from appointees and senior officials of the NPP. We know of the gruesome murder of Ahmed Sualey, the sustained attack on Anas Arimiyaw Anas and Manasseh Awuni Azure. Ghana Integrity Initiative and all other civil society organizations fighting corruption have been tamed. Meanwhile there's an outbreak of corruption in this government making it look like corruption is one of their social intervention policies.