High Court finds Auditor-General Guilty of Contempt in Osafo Maafo case

The Accra High Court has found the Auditor-General, Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo, guilty of contempt in an application filed by the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo after he was surcharged by the Auditor -General.

The court presided over by Justice Afia Asare Botwe cited Mr Daniel Domelevo’s failure to submit a response to an appeal against his office’s decision, as a reason for its ruling.

Justice Afia Asare Botwe described the anti-corruption campaigner’s reasons for the failure as “untenable and an afterthought.”

Mr Osafo-Maafo filed the contempt application accusing the Auditor-General of refusing to file certain documents based on which he [Senior Minister] was surcharged.

Per law, the Auditor-General ought to have filed the documents in court within 14 days after the Senior Minister initiated a legal action, challenging the said surcharge against him but this did not happen.

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Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, who had challenged the Auditor-General’s $1m surcharge on him had asked the High Court to cite the Auditor-General for contempt for delaying his response within the stipulated time.

Yaw Oppong who is legal counsel for the Senior Minister said, Mr. Domelovo was served with the responses of his client on December 13, 2019.

Contempt of court could carry a jail sentence and the legal practitioner said his client had left the High Court to use its discretion to decide this fate.

The fresh fight over technicalities is on the sidelines of the actual fight between the President’s most senior minister who has been surcharged $1m by the A-G.

The Auditor-General’s legal counsel, Thaddeus Sory, prayed for clemency and leniency of the court after his client was found guilty.

The court, in its ruling Tuesday morning [May 12, 2020] cautioned the Auditor-General and discharged him, per  reports Graphic Online.