Auditor General activates another court process against EOCO

The Auditor General Daniel Yao Domelevo has triggered yet another legal action to stop the Economic and Organise Crime Office (EOCO) from investigating him over alleged procurement infraction.

Mr Domelevo warned EOCO to cease investigating him on grounds that it has no legal basis whatsoever to subject him and officers from the Ghana Audit Service to investigations into alleged procurement breaches in the purchase vehicles for the Service in 2018.

He proceeded to sue EOCO two days later at the Human Rights Division of the High Court to enforce his human rights.

For him, all aspects of the investigations by EOCO, including taking his caution statement and granting him bail are “wrongful, illegal, null and void.”

He is thus among other things, praying the court to declare that EOCO has no “statutory mandate to investigate the Audit Service for any breaches under the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663)”

But the EOCO in a statement on November 27 rejected the claim by the Auditor General that it lacks power to investigate him.

“It should be noted that Section 79 of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, Act 959, is limited to corruption-related offences under the serious offences category of the EOCO Act. It does not oust the jurisdiction of EOCO from investigating other serious offences that are not necessarily of a corruption-related nature,” EOCO held.

Even before the case is heard, Mr Domelevo has filed interlocutory injunction to prevent EOCO, its officers, agents and servants from continuing to undertake any investigation of him and the Audit Service for alleged procurement breaches until the final determination of his substantive case.

“That if EOCO is allowed to continue its purported investigations of myself and the service, it will amount to allowing its ultra vires acts to go unchecked for which I shall continue to suffer irretrievable hardship, damage and harm as EOCO will disrupt my constitutionally and statutorily mandated duty to the republic,” he said in an affidavit supporting his motion.

In the circumstance, he said, it will be “just and convenient” for the court to intervene to restrain EOCO from continuing with its illegal and unlawful investigations and arrests of officers of Audit Service until the case is disposed off.

Mr Domelevo argued that the grant of the application which was filed on November 28 will preserve the status quo of the parties and save him from further and additional irretrievable loss.

According to him, EOCO is hell-bent on carrying its illegal investigations and has no plans to stop unless the court intervenes.

On the basis of these facts, he said, “I hereby pray this court to grant an order of interlocutory injunction against EOCO”, its agents, assigns and servants from going ahead with the investigations until the final determination of the case.

The injunction application has been scheduled to be moved in court on December 9 by Mr Domelevo’s lawyer, Thaddeus Sory.