Auditor-General, Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo, has been awarded the Integrity Personality of the Year at the maiden Ghana Integrity Awards.
Also nominated for the same honour was Freelance Investigative Journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni.
The Ghana Integrity Award is organised by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the Ghana arm of Transparency International.
Other nominees for the Integrity Personality of the Year include the Director of Ghana Think Foundation, Ato Ulzen-Appiah; Managing Director of Ghana Publishing Company, Ing. Edward Sowah Adjetey and Engineer at State Housing Company Limited Ghana, Mr David Boateng Asante.
The Ghana Integrity Awards (GI Awards) was launched in August 2019 with the aim of honouring institutions and individuals whose efforts are contributing positively and sustainably to the promotion of integrity and the fight against corruption in Ghana.
The other award categories for institutions are: Policy & Administrative Reforms, Transparency & Social Accountability, Efficient Public Service Delivery and Effective Internal Control Enforcement. Institutions that have been shortlisted will be evaluated and scored 100 per cent by the Evaluation Committee.
The Integrity Personality of the Year and the institutional categories winners will be awarded to commemorate the United Nations International Anti-Corruption Day and the climax of the Ghana Integrity Initiative 20th Anniversary.
The integrity battle
Mr Domelevo’s award comes on the heels of his ongoing tussle with the Economic and Organised Crime over the latter’s right to investigate allegations of corruption against the Auditor-General.
EOCO has been scrutinising allegations of alleged public procurement infractions at the Audit Service.
Some civil society organization have described the investigations currently being conducted by EOCO as an attempt “to teach the Auditor General a lesson.”
Mr Domelevo a no-nonsense anti-corruption crusader has since 2017 tighten the noose around persons involved financial deals that have caused financial loss to the state.
Kroll saga
The latest person to be caught in that web is the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo.
Mr Osafo-Maafo has been charged over $1 million for entering into an agreement with a foreign company without following due process.
The Auditor-General gave the Senior Minister 60 days to go to court to seek an order setting aside his directive.
Mr Domelevo had stated that the senior minister’s responses to his queries over a government contract with Kroll Associates UK were not satisfactory enough.
The senior minister, in 2017, was alleged to have contracted the services of Kroll Associated, UK Ltd, using a single-source procurement process, which needed parliamentary approval.
However, by September 2018, the Auditor-General said more than $1 million, the equivalent to ¢4.86 million was made to the company as full payment for services it had not rendered.
But, a letter from the senior minister indicated that some examples of asset-tracing work done,
Nonetheless, it refused to reveal others, explaining they were “classified security matters.”
The Auditor-Generall questioned the validity of a letter from the senior minister to show the contract had approval from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).
Mr Domelevo said the supposed letter showed approval was given by PPA management to the National Security Secretariat and not the senior minister who entered into the agreement on behalf of the government.
The Auditor-General explained that the contract was signed on September 26, 2017, but the purported approval came on November 14, 2017.
Petition to EOCO
Not long after the back and forth between Auditor-General and the senior Minister, a private citizen petitioned EOCO, claiming, among others, that the Audit Service had breached the Procurement Law, Act 663, in the procurement of vehicles worth almost GH¢6.2 million.
The petitioner requested EOCO to determine whether proper procedures were followed by the Entity Tender Committee (ETC) in procuring the vehicles and recommend appropriate sanctions in accordance with the Public Procurement Act, Act 663, where necessary.
On November 14, 2019, Mr Domelevo was invited by EOCO.
He gave a statement and was cautioned and granted bail by the investigative body for further investigations into the allegation.
However, on November 18, 2019, the Auditor-General wrote to EOCO to stop probing him and his outfit, with the argument that the investigative body had no power to do so.
He, consequently, demanded an unqualified apology from the anti-graft state agency within five working days from the date of the receipt of the letter.
In his response, the Executive Director of EOCO, Commissioner of Police (ACP) Mr Frank Adu-Poku (retd), told the Daily Graphic that the Auditor-General could not put his own interpretation on the law and if he had any issues he should go to court for redress.
Suit
On November 20, 2019, Mr Domelevo filed a suit at the Accra High Court with a case that EOCO had no legal mandate to investigate alleged procurement breaches against him; any official of the Audit Service, the service itself or any public official or public institution.
According to him, it is the OSP that had the power to investigate such alleged offences.
Based on his contention, the Auditor-General has described the investigation by EOCO as “wrongful, illegal, capricious and null and void”.
He, therefore, wants the court to declare the investigations by EOCO as illegal and order a halt to the investigations