Opinions of Saturday, 13 March 2021

Columnist: Rockson Adofo

NDC had better come to terms with the Retirement of Auditor General Domelevo

Daniel Yao Domelevo, Retired Auditor General Daniel Yao Domelevo, Retired Auditor General

I remark with cringing shock the demonstrated support for the recently compulsorily retired Auditor General Daniel Yao Domelevo, by the NDC Members of Parliament with their unpredictable partisan Civil Service Organisations (CSOs) and assigns.

When I listen to the across-the-board of the NDC MPs and they're faithful including their supporting CSOs’ executives like Franklin Cudjoe, Professors Kwaku Asare aka Kwaku Azar and Henry Kwasi Prempeh, I just wonder how intellectually dishonest they can become in their rendering of service to the nation and the people of Ghana.

I shall be brief without spending much of my precious time on such persons who have deliberately chosen to spew lies in defence of their malicious counterpart and in the name of their NDC partisanship and by extension, the worship of their stomach. They listen to the dictates of their stomach to act but not their head, I can assert without the least shudder.

Did anyone fill the various forms in which different dates of birth were indicated for Mr Daniel Domelevo at certain stages of his public service working life? Did he not for reasons only best known to him at those various times choose to fill in 1960 and 1961 as his date of birth? By that dishonesty at those moments, was he not trying to cheat the system?

Is it not said in an Akan proverb, “Se wo sisi ananse a, wo sisi woho”, thus, “If you cheat the spider, you cheat yourself”? He was cleverly trying selfishly to exploit the system at various stages of his working life but at the end, when the system became fairer to him, and the tree fell on him, he is crying foul, weeping his eyes out.

It is no secret how some Ghanaians or foreigners from third world countries come to Europe, Canada or the USA, have ended up altering their date of birth for reasons privy to themselves and for their interests. Knowing that it is a crime to do so, they don’t seek to go back to change the dates years later once they have entered them on their work and other vital documents. They just go with that flow no matter how events turn out to be.

How often have we not heard about some African professional footballers altering their date of birth once they join foreign football clubs? Do they later claim their date of birth is wrong when they are engaged in the clubs? No!

Why is Mr Domelevo seeking to enjoy only the better side of his change of date of birth but not the other sour side of it, thus, proceed on retirement for your time is due, based on your information as you hand-filled it in your employment form.

If he had made such silly contestations as he is making in Ghana as supported by the NDC, here in the civilized white man's land, he would find his arse in court and in jail or would be expelled with the consequence of losing his retirement emoluments.

I have been told that once in Italy, a certain Ghanaian who had reduced his age on paper by twenty years, had to quit his job to go to Ghana, losing all his entitlements. When he was actually 77 years old, on paper and his work contract, he was only 57. He could feel in his bones that he was not physically able to do the job. However, he was not due for pension as per his age on paper. He finally decided to quit the job to move back to Ghana after several years working in Italy.

He can only go back to Italy to claim his State pension when he is officially due for pension as on his employment contract form but not as by his actual age of birth known to himself, his parents and God. He has become a victim of his own petty crime, if I may succinctly put it that way.

Is Domelevo the only known anti-corruption guru in Ghana? If yes, why did he alter his date of birth? Does altering your date of birth not amount to corruption and crime?

Again, why was he not appointed the Auditor General during any best part of the full term of the presidency of His Excellency John Dramani Mahama but only when he had lost election 2016 and had only three weeks to officially hand over the governance of the nation to President-elect Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo?

The NDC MPs and their agents and assigns had better give us a break from their noisy chirping. All their assigned reasons in their fruitless attempts to tag President Nana Akufo-Addo with corruption upon directing Domelevo out of office is purely nonsensical and demeaning of them as MPs and academia. They don’t face facts. They don’t respect the laws. They don’t obey the laws and understand how plain-words English written laws are applied and interpreted. And, should I say they are bogus? No, I shall not!

They had better learn the laws, respect the laws, apply and interpret the laws as they are but not to be seen to foolishly agitate for the laws to be twisted in favour of their criminal dispensations.

If to the NDC MPs and faithful, Daniel Domelevo is the only incorruptible Auditor General in Ghana, I am sorry, his retirement age is due and he must go. If Ghana will subsequently sink without him, so be it because all the rest of us have become foolishly corrupt to not be able to manage the country for our common good.

Let us cease being stupidly partisan in order not to end up proving ourselves little-minds before our contemporary whites.