Gov't has no agenda against Auditor-General Domelevo - Hadzide
The government has no agenda to hound the Auditor-General, Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo out of office, a Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Pius Enam Hadzide has said.
Reacting to claims by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Monday that they have chanced on information that the government was scheming to oust the Auditor-General, Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo from office, because he has disallowed and surcharged the Senior Minister for some US$1 million paid to Kroll and Associates, a UK private firm, and questioning the nature of a professional service it offered to the government to warrant the payment, Mr Hadzide said the allegations were “a figment of the NDC’s own diabolic imagination.”
In a radio interview on Accra based Joy FM on Monday evening, Mr Hadzide said, “It is totally untrue and maliciously fabricated. There is no such thing as a plot by this government or by any agency or persons working in government to do any such thing as removing anybody from office.”
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Mr Domelevo has dragged the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to court, questioning its mandate to investigate his office over some alleged procurement breaches, insisting that the probe has ulterior motives.
The NDC at Monday's press conference addressed by General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketiah agreed with Mr Domelevo and alleged that there is a grand plot by government-backed forces to remove the Auditor-General because of his uncompromising stance in exposing alleged corruption perpetrated by the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo.
But reacting in the Joy FM interview, the Deputy Minister of Information said neither government nor its related organisations have any such plans.
“The NDC offers no proof whatsoever in the allegations that they make. They claim that EOCO is acting at the behest of the Senior Minister without offering any proof, no evidence just malicious fabrications. These are not statements that any group of persons or media houses should pay any credence to. It should be disregarded,” he said.
Mr Hadzide said the NDC only wants to politicise this matter and wants any such attempts to be condemned out rightly.
In his view, Mr Domelevo did the right thing by proceeding to court when he suspected that EOCO has no authority to investigate him.
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“This unwholesome unwarranted politicisation of an otherwise straightforward legal matter is very worrisome that all well-meaning people should rise up against any attempt from any group to want to determine and direct how state agencies such as the courts, EOCO and Auditor-General’s office should be run. This is unacceptable,” he added.