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.