The former Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo, has hit back at the Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, for criticising him.
Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu chastised Ghana’s recent Auditor-Generals for publishing audit reports before they were reviewed by Parliament.
According to him, Auditor-Generals everywhere in the world first submit their reports to the legislature for them to be probed before they are made public, so the people are not wrongly judged by the public.
Speaking in a Neat FM interview, the Majority Leader added that the former Auditor-General, Daniel Domelevo, was the person who started publishing audit reports before they were probed by Parliament.
“All the Auditor-Generals in the world submit their works to their Parliament. But for our Auditor-Generals, after their investigations, you see them ordering people to pay monies and releasing their reports to the public. And they end up tarnishing people’s image.
“These things started during the period of Domelevo. But because of what was happening between him and the government, if you criticise him, people start saying that you are against him. But what he started was not good for our democracy,” he said in Twi.
Reacting to this in an interview on Neat FM as quoted by GhanaWeb.com, Daniel Domelevo said that the Majority Leader’s argument does not hold water.
He said that Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu’s claim that he leaked audited reports is wrong because he legally published the reports according to the provisions of the 1992 Constitution.
“He said that I used unconstitutional procedures when I released audit reports. Can he point out the provision in the Constitution that shows that the Auditor General’s report must not be published or can only be published after it has been looked at by Parliament?
“If he is not able to do this, then he is deceiving people. He is an elderly man; he has to be speaking the truth. I also heard the Attorney General say the same thing. I am really shocked by their pronouncement because I went through the Constitution and what they are saying cannot be found anywhere.
“What pained me the most is that he (Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu) said I published the audit reports because there was a rift between myself and the government. Because if there was truly a rift, why did President Akufo-Addo praise me in 2018 because of my work? Is there a rift between the government and the current auditor general, because he is also releasing his audit reports,” he said in Twi.
