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500 CSOs want President to rescind decision on Domelevo
ABOUT 500 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) across the country have begun a campaign to get President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to rescind his decision on the Auditor-General (AG), Daniel Domelevo’s accumulated leave.
Under the taglines #bringbackdomelevo and #letinstitutionswork, the CSOs are of the view that the action by the President was unconstitutional and a threat to the liberation of the AG and other independent governance institutions.
At the launch of the campaign in Accra yesterday, Dr Kojo Asante, Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement at Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) who read a statement on behalf of the CSOs,urged the President to reversehis decision to affirm his commitment against the corruption fight.
“We find the entire episode and the justification for the President’s action regrettable and inconsistent with both the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution.
“In our estimation, such actions only weaken our quest for good democratic governance grounded in the principle of checks and balances, rule of law and the pursuit of public accountability”, he said
The CSOs against Corruption include CDD-Ghana, SEND Ghana; Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII); Citizens Movement against Corruption (CMaC); Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG).
Others are Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), Africa Centre for International Law and Accountability (ACILA), Right To Information(RTI) Coalition; One Ghana Movement, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Penplusbytes.
President Akufo-Addo on Monday, June 29, 2020, directed Mr Domelevo to take his ‘accumulated leave’ of 123 days, beginning July, 1 2020, in compliance to sections 20(1) and 31 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651) which provides for a 15-day leave entitlement for a worker in a calendar year.
Further, a worker or an employee cannot enter into any agreement to forgo a leave entitlement; such agreement would be void. Mr Domelevo was said to have taken nine out of a possible 132 days since his appointment in 2016.
However, a reply from Mr Domelevo, challenging the legal basis on the presidential directive was met with a counter argument and directive that he should add his 2020 leave days; bringing the total to 167 days.
According to Dr Asante, the argument that Mr Domelevo had some accumulated leave was invalid because the Court of Appeal’s decision in the case of Samuel M.K Adrah versus Electricity Company of Ghana, the court said there was no such thing as accumulated leave and if workers did not take their leave, it was lost.
He said the 1992 Constitution did not give the President a Human Resource Manager role to be administering the leave of institutions like the AG’ Office and wondered if that meant the President could ask the Electoral Commissioner and the Chief Justice to proceed on leave or ‘discipline’ them as being done to the AG.
While acknowledging the fact that Mr Domelevo was without fault, he said his work as AG over the last three years had been impartial and exemplary and had been commended by many including the President himself for which reason the President should rethink his directives to save his own international image.
The Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh Dompreh, has expressed concern over delays in the release of the District Assemblies Common Fund, warning that the situation is stalling development across the country.
On his facebook page, he described as a matter of urgent national importance, the Minority Chief Whip pointed to what he sees as a growing crisis of unpaid contractors, abandoned projects, and halted infrastructure works in many districts.
He noted that several communities are grappling with half completed schools, unfinished health facilities, abandoned markets, deteriorating roads, and stalled sanitation projects.
According to him, many contractors who have executed projects for district assemblies have not been paid, forcing some construction firms to demobilise from sites while workers lose their jobs.
He stressed that the District Assemblies Common Fund is not a discretionary allocation but a constitutional requirement under Article 252 of the 1992 Constitution, intended to support development at the local level.
In his view, years of delayed releases and accumulated arrears have weakened district development financing and disrupted projects meant to improve living conditions in communities.
He further argued that some payments made in recent years were largely the settlement of old debts rather than funding for new or ongoing projects, a situation he believes has affected contractor confidence and local economic activity.
He described the issue as more than a budgetary challenge, characterising it as a development emergency and a governance concern.
He therefore urged the appropriate authorities to pay outstanding DACF arrears, settle contractors who have completed their work, and ensure that transfers to districts are automatic and predictable.
He maintained that decentralisation can only succeed when district assemblies receive adequate and timely funding to carry out development projects.
He emphasised that stalled projects directly affect ordinary citizens, since they rely on such infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, sanitation, and economic activities.
He called for renewed attention to grassroots development, insisting that national progress should not be concentrated only in major cities but extended to all communities.
By: Jacob Aggrey
Richard Appiah, the footballer who killed two children and stored part of their bodies in a fridge at Abesim in the Bono Region in 2021 has been handed a lifetime sentence.
This was after a five member panel of judges at the Accra High Court returned a verdict of guilty against the convict.
Appiah, 32, also a draughtsman would spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of murder.
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BY MALIK SULLEMANA
