Auditor-General vacates office

Auditor-General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo left office Tuesday afternoon following a presidential directive asking him to take his accumulated leave.

President Akufo-Addo in directing the Auditor-General, to proceed on leave said he should hand over his duties to Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, a Deputy Auditor-General.

He is therefore taking his accumulated leave of 123 working days from Wednesday, July 1, 2020.

Reports say Yaw Domelevo got to the office by mid morning and by 1pm he was out, having packed some of his stuff Monday when he got the letter from the Presidency.

He is expected to return to office by December.

The Presidency in a statement issued on Monday and signed by Director of Communications, Eugene Arhin, said the proceed on leave order was based on records available to the Presidency, noting that the directive is to take effect from Wednesday, July 1, 2020.

According to the statement, the President’s decision to direct Mr Domelevo to take his accumulated leave is based on sections 20 (1) and 31 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), which apply to all workers, including public office holders such as the Auditor-General.

The Act states that a worker is entitled to annual leave with full pay, in a calendar year of continuous service, which cannot be relinquished or forgone by the worker or employee.

The statement says since his appointment as Auditor-General on December 30, 2016, Mr Domelevo has taken only nine working days of his accumulated annual leave of 132 working days.

Citing a similar situation under the late President Atta Mills, the statement said President Akufo-Addo paid attention to the precedent, directing the Auditor-General to take his accumulated annual leave of 123 working days.
Former Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Vitus Azeem faulted the Auditor-General for inviting the problem in the first place.

Mr Azeem said, the Auditor-General should have acted and taken his annual leave and not to have allowed it to accumulate for him to be pushed out.

“Unless the employer has a reason for not granting the leave you should go on leave. So for the leave to accumulate up to 123 days was most unfortunate on the part of the Auditor-General.

“I think that as an Auditor-General he should not have allowed that to happen. Unless there is evidence that he has written to the Board asking for his leave and the board has said no, you cannot go”, he said.

DGN Online learnt that Mr Domelevo was not in the mood to take his leave as he flagrantly disregarded the Board’s directives whenever the issue of his leave cropped up.

Source: Daily Guide Network