[ 2021-03-02 ]

Auditor-General Domelevo’s 167 days leave ends today
The Auditor-General, Mr. Daniel Yao Domelevo’s
167 days leave will end today, Tuesday, 2 March
2021.

Mr. Domelevo is therefore expected to resume work
on Wednesday, 3 March 2021.

There were unconfirmed rumours early 2021 that Mr.
Domelevo was set to resume work in January.

However, in a social media post, the
Auditor-General indicated that his 167 days leave
would end on 2 March 2021.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo directed Mr.
Domelevo to take his accumulated annual leave of
123 working days effective Wednesday, 1 July 2020
but later increased to 167 following a protest
letter from the A-G.

A statement released by the office of the
President and signed by the Director of
Communications, Mr. Eugene Arhin, on Monday, 29
June 2020, said: “The President’s decision to
direct Mr Domelevo to take his accumulated annual
leave is based on Sections 20(1) and Labour Act,
2003 (Act 651), which apply to all workers
including public office holders such as the
Auditor-General.”

Mr. Domelevo is said to have taken only nine days
of his annual leave.

But reacting to the directive from the president
in a letter addressed to Nana Asante Bediatuo, the
Secretary to the President, Mr. Domelevo said:
“My knowledge of recent labour and practice in
the country is that no worker is deemed to have
accumulated any leave on account of their having
failed, omitted, neglected or even refused to
enjoy their rights to annual leave, which the law
guarantees for their benefit, not the
employer.”

He stated that to the best of his knowledge,
therefore, “wherein any given year a worker
fails, omits, neglects or even refuses to take
their annual leave such leave is deemed forfeited
with no corresponding obligation on the part of
the employer to enforce the workers right to take
their leave by assuming, deeming or declaring the
forfeited leave accumulated.”

“I am also informed that by law, every person is
entitled in some in very limited circumstances, to
wave what the law has ordained for their benefit,
in this case, a worker’s leave. Be that as it
may, the directive that I proceed on leave and
hand ‘over all matters relating to the office to
Mr Johnson Akuamoah’ with all due respect has
serious implications for the institutional
independence of the office of the auditor
general,” the letter said.

A petition presented to the office of the
President, signed by some 1,000 Ghanaians living
abroad and led by Lolan Sagoe-Moses and Korieh
Duodu, with regard to Mr. Domelevo’s leave
directive, asked that the directive be reversed,
noting that it would make him incapable of acting
as Auditor-General.

The petition stated: “We question how the public
is expected to consider such a decision as made in
good faith, in circumstances where the
Auditor-General is essentially being asked to make
himself well-rested and refreshed for the
commencement of his retirement. Mr. Domelevo’s
absence, during this 167-day period, would mean he
will not be able to actively execute his
Constitutionally-prescribed role as protector of
the public purse during the crucial 6 month period
before the general election, a period.”

However, responding to the petition from the
Ghanaians abroad, Secretary to the President, Nana
Asante Bediatuo indicated that President
Akufo-Addo’s stance on the leave directive has
not changed.

Source - Class fm

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