Former Auditor-General and committee member of Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL), Daniel Yaw Domelevo has demanded accountability from all government appointees, working under President John Dramani Mahama’s administration.
Domelevo made this demand after stating his expectations of the Attorney-General, Hon Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine to conduct all necessary investigations and audits into the preparatory reports that the ORAL team submitted to his desk through President Mahama.
“And we hope that that culture of impunity whereby public officers dissipate public resources anyhow with no sense of responsibility may have to come to an end”
Daniel Yaw Domelevo, Former Attorney-General of Ghana
Domelevo has been very vocal with his sentiments on matters of corruption after President Mahama’s anti-corruption preparatory team recently submitted its report.
“My biggest happiness today is that the President did not only sanction the ORAL… but the President also promised more or less, OPAL, Operation Prevent All Loots”
Daniel Yaw Domelevo, Former Attorney-General of Ghana
In a statement prior to this, he was elated at President Mahama’s intention to not only focus on the recovery of stolen wealth from the nation but to prevent further looting in his tenure.
“That is the most important thing,” he affirmed. He is of the view that even as the government actively tries to “mop” the “leakage” of the past, it should also train itself to prevent future “leakages”, where leakages refer to all manner of corruption by state officials.
Domelevo does not want a situation where the current administration will be unable to hold accountable and bring to justice perpetrators of state corruption under the previous administration because of an inability to hold its officials accountable.
He however expressed his hope in President Mahama to take the right actions every step of the way in the fight against corruption. He emphasized that anything else would be very “disappointing”.
Two of President Mahama’s 120-day policy involved constituting the leanest and most efficient government and establishing a robust code of conduct and standards for all government officials.
The President has since assumption of office shown his commitment to the fight against widespread government corruption and state plunder by taking steps to implement the two policies above.
One of such actions was his directive for all ministerial appointees to declare their assets before they were sworn into office.
“It cannot be business as usual. We must be transparent and fair in all our dealings. The anti-corruption institutions will be empowered to investigate and deal with any appointee who falls foul of the law”
“I expect all of you to begin the process of declaring your assets. The chief of staff will announce the cutoff date by which time all eligible appointees should have deposited their assets declaration forms with the auditor general”
President John Dramani Mahama
Domelevo cautioned that “the current administration will also be held to the same standard of accountability” that they are using to recover the loot from the past administration and described it as good news.
The expectation of officials under President Mahama’s government to not be corrupt is high. They cannot make null and void the anti-corruption effort of the First Gentleman of the land.
This implies that even while they pursue ORAL, they uphold OPAL in all its righteousness. The President’s firing of former Deputy Communications Minister Victoria Hamah for her intention to make a million US dollars serves as a signal.
There is little doubt that the President would not appropriately deal with corrupt officials this time too.
In alignment, Domelevo urged Ghanaians to hold the President accountable to his pledge to fight against corruption, to ensure that “when his staff or his appointees also commit similar offenses, they face the music”
He has in his previous interview established his hope for the “sacrifice” of Team ORAL to not be made waste.
He called for “proper investigation” after which all who were “found culpable” would be held “accountable”.
However Domelevo’s type of justice was one that focused on retrieving stolen monies with “surcharges”.
“Personally, I think that we should move into recovering monies with some additional surcharges than just putting people in custody so that they can come back after five or ten years to come and enjoy their booty”
“So if we think that we have won the case against mister ‘A’, and he took 10,000,000, we should be aiming at maybe 15 or 20,000,000 from him”
Daniel Yaw Domelevo, Former Attorney-General of Ghana
“Custodial sentences”, he believes will do little in deterring the kind of corruption typical in Ghana. He added that the state would only end up spending public funds trying to keep all guilty persons in its already “choked prisons”.
“My prayer is to ensure that we hold public offices to a higher level of accountability” he said of all government appointments, including those made to the Jubilee House.
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