Locks to Auditor-General’s office changed while he is on leave

Days after the Auditor-General, Daniel Domelevo, was directed by the President to proceed on a mandatory leave as required by the labor law, locks to his office have been changed.

Mr. Domelevo passed by his office on Tuesday, July 28 while serving his compulsory 167 to pick up a document.

But to his shock, the locks to his office had been changed making it impossible for him to gain access.

“The key cannot even enter. It was flat like this and they have changed it to this one,” the Auditor-General said in a leaked video while attempting to open his office.

Mr. Domelevo had been engaged in a war of words over a directive from the presidency for him to proceed on a four-month leave.

The Auditor-General had responded to the letter insisting that his previous leave entitlement had been forfeited and that he was only entitled to the 2020 leave.

But the Presidency in a response to Mr. Domelevo said he should add the 2020 leave to the accumulated one, bringing the total to 167.

Mr. Domelevo was appointed by the erstwhile Mahama administration in December 2016.

The Auditor-General’s mandatory leave had become a case study for human resource experts.

One school of thought including the TUC insists that it was mandatory for all workers to go use their leave period while others including 500 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) who said his previous leave days had been forfeited.

They argued that once an annual leave was not utilized, it was forfeited.

They described the president’s action as inconsistent with the 1992 constitution and ‘gravely weakens the President’s fight against corruption and his standing in the eyes of the international community as someone committed to public accountability.’

But the government in a response to the CSO’s petition said the Auditor-General would not be recalled.

Though the response to the 500 CSOs admitted the president’s charge to Ghanaians to be citizens and not spectators, the directive to Mr. Domelevo remained unchanged.

“The president encourages people to be citizens and not spectators, and therefore, your petition is welcome, and its contents have been duly 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,” the Presidency said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a US-based Ghanaian law lecturer, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, has sued the Attorney General over the President’s directive for the Auditor General to proceed on leave.