Any lawsuits and/or defence seeking to stop the president’s directive to Auditor-General Domelevo from going on leave with intent to exhaust his accumulated paid holiday leave will be dead on the arrival.
It is just too funny to read that the very so-called educated Ghanaians are the very those making a joke of themselves and their intelligence by trying their hardest to portray the president’s action as unconstitutional hence must rescind it with immediate effect or face their barrage of lawsuits.
In one of the lawsuits by a Ghanaian Law or Accounting professor residing in the USA, it is curious to read online that he quoted the Ghana Labour Act, 2003, (Act 651) Section 31, halfway through. He quoted Section 31, thus, “any agreement to forgo such leave is void”
However, Section 31 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), states, “Any agreement to relinquish the entitlement to annual leave or to forgo such leave is void”
The clarity of the obligation to go on leave as stated in Section 31 of the Labour Act cannot be overemphasised. However, some of those suing the Attorney General, the Acting Auditor-General and the Audit Service or whatever, are citing the same law in their defence to proving the president’s directive as unconstitutional.
Such litigants who see in their mind’s eye to be paragon of virtue and authorities on Ghana laws are simply making a joke of themselves. The constitutional stipulations and other relevant laws are too clear for all discerning Ghanaians to read and understand so why the many futile attempts to twist the truth? Again, why do they think Mr Daniel Yao Domelevo should not go on leave?
His supporters are claiming that he is such an anti-corruption personality without his kind ever seen in the political and public service history of Ghana. Therefore, he should stay put to fight the suspected corruption in perpetration by the NPP government.
Honestly, I find their arguments wily if not very silly. Does his anti-corruption quality be allowed to overrule, or negate, the fact that the laws of the land must be respected and adhered to?
How do we define and understand corruption? Corruption by the Cambridge dictionary is defined as, “illegal, bad, or dishonest behaviour, especially by people in positions of power”. By his failure and intransigence to proceed on leave not amount to abuse of power, thus corruption? Why at all did he accumulate his paid annual holiday leave without ever willing to take them? Is that not corruption? What was the motive behind his action and who authorised it? Or, he thinks he is above the law so he can do whatever he wanted because he is a constitutional entity with the unlimited power to do whatever he wanted when he wanted?
Does the Audit Service have internal policy that allow their staff to accumulate their annual paid holiday leave, and if yes, for how many consecutive years? If there is any such internal company handbook specifying their operational policies, can they publish their policy relating to annual leave for all to see?
Whatever the internal policy is, it cannot override or supersede statutory or constitutional policy as is stated in the 1992 Constitution in Article 187, Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651) Sections 20 and 31 and the Audit Service Act 2000.
The internal policy cannot say you can relinquish or forgo your annual leave contrary to the statutory regulations in place. It can only state how you can take your holiday leave either in bloc or in parts until the number of holidays due you is exhausted. It may specify whether or not you can defer the holiday accrued to the following year’s in what is accumulation but never to forgo them.
In the absence of any such internal policy, Mr Domelevo’s failure to proceed on leave, but to keep accumulating them for reasons only best known to him and his supporters, constitutes a breach of the law.
If he was that anti-corruption czar without his kind in Ghana to protect the government’s purse, why did then President Mahama not confirm him as the Auditor-General until he had lost the 2016 election and had only a week to hand over the reins of government to the incoming president-elect from the NPP?
Was Mahama afraid of Domelevo’s anti-corruption stance hence kept him aloof from his government but saw him as extremely good to deal the NPP a dirty dizzying blow to the head?
What is good for the goose is also good for the gander. What is poisonous for you should be poisonous for your neighbour. Therefore, morally, President Mahama erred by his attitude, but constitutionally, he was within his rights so nobody could hold him to account for his behaviour.
Mr Domelevo is an NDC stalwart which himself or nobody can deny. His political persuasion is irrelevant as long as he does his job satisfactorily and fairly. Nevertheless, I have an issue with why he does not want to go on leave and sees any directive to him to go on leave as his sack from the job he loves best.
Who even authorised him to accumulate his annual leave, himself or his department’s internal policy?
Anyway, I can write thesis on the legality or lawfulness of the president’s directive to him to take his accumulated leave and the illegalities of his challenges not to go on leave.
Please, fellow Ghanaians, do research to know and understand certain things and laws without allowing others to fool you. Mark my words, any suits brought against anybody or any institution to seek to criminalise or reverse the presidential directive to Auditor-General Daniel Yao Domelevo to take his accumulated annual paid holiday leave is dead the very minute the suit is filed because the directive is grounded in law as made evident above.
