Retired Auditor General Daniel Yao Domelevo and President Akufo-Addo
Following an ongoing discussion on one of the Ghana FM radio stations in Ghana, where an NDC Communication Officer and an NPP Communication Officer are guests, an issue about the recently retired Auditor General Daniel Yao Domelevo has been raised by the radio programme presenter. It is all about the Audit Service Board or a body within the Audit Service writing to request Mr Daniel Domelevo to come back to do a comprehensive handover.
Be that as it may, unless it is a requirement in the Ghana Audit Service laws and regulations, I will find it a bit weird recalling him to come and do a comprehensive handover because of the fact that he has already proceeded on retirement under some acrimonious circumstances.
The public will recall that he was compelled to proceed on leave to exhaust his then accumulated annual paid holiday amounting to about 147 to 167 working days. He put up some incomprehensible machismo resistance as though, he was like a cow/bull become aware of the fact it was being dragged into the slaughterhouse to be slaughtered.
He was completely in the wrong. This is because the law was being applied to him as it would apply to any other public servant discovered to have overdue paid holiday leave to his or her credit.
In Ghana, unlike in Europe or America, you cannot under any circumstances be made to forego your annual paid holiday. It is compulsory to have it, taking it as when due, or you decide to accumulate them by deferment but on permission or agreement with your management to them in a later date.
He finally, but grudgingly, proceeded on leave as is required by law and precedent, despite the offbeat support in his favour by some irresponsible partisan individuals and Civil Service Organisations in the country. He only returned from leave to be confronted with his worst nightmare.
While on leave, he had attained his retirement age of 60 years by June 2020 since according to his own handwritten documents of employment and Social Security and National Insurance Trust contributions or refund, he was born in June 1960.
Again, he muscled his arms in a fight, still having his usual partisan friends rallying in support of him. Tried as he did, he was floored by the law hence had to submissively but shamefully proceed on retirement.
Why should such a bruised person harbouring an animus towards the establishment and the law that made him the Auditor General in the first place and with the false belief that he was a constitutional independent entity, a law unto himself hence unaccountable to anyone, be asked to come back to render a comprehensive handover?
Should there be any such handover, it should have been done prior to him going on retirement. Should he come at all to do it, will it cover the time that he was in the post till he proceeded on leave? Is he having some official documents and properties still with him hence requiring him for such a handover?
In the event of him refusing to abide by the request, what will happen next?
From my experience in the corporate industry, ahead of service about to proceed on retirement does handover to the company or whoever is taking over from him or her everything and shows the person a bit about what goes on in his/her office prior to finally going on retirement.
What is going on with Domelevo who is said to have agreed to come back on the condition that whoever deputised for him while he was on holiday will hand over to him and be allowed about 30 days to prepare that comprehensive handover is not right in my sight?
You don’t secure or close the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Anyway, apply the laws as they legally operate in Ghana.