The Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo and four officials from the Ministry of Finance – Michael Ayesu, Abraham Kofi Tawia, Eva Mends, Patrick Nomo – have filed contempt proceedings at an Accra High Court against the Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo, for failing to file in court the documents based on which they were surcharged.
The Applicants last year filed an appeal at the Registry of the High Court, Accra, with the pleadings for the court to set aside the AG’s decision on disallowance and surcharge against them.
Per the law, the AG was required to file the documents on which he based that decision, in addition to reply to the appeal 14 days after service on him.
But, according to the applicants, a search they conducted at the High Court, Accra on Jan 14, 2020 has revealed that though the AG was dully served with the appeal on December 13, 2019, he failed to comply with the law by not filing the said documents.
With the backing of the law that failure to file the documents fourteen days after service, constitutes Contempt of the Court, the applicants decided to file the application against the AG and praying the court to impose prison sentence on him or any other punishment.
“The refusal of the respondent (the Auditor-General) to file in particular the documents on which he based the purported decision against us, exposes his contrived scheme deliberately fashioned to achieve his own invidious agenda and also with a view to prevent the Honourable Court from efficiently ascertaining the full circumstances of our case and effectually ruling on it in terms of Order 54A Rule (1) and (2) of CI 47 pursuant to amendment by CI 102.”
The refusal of the respondent to file the relevant documents and a reply contrary to the relevant provisions of the law is a confirmation of our conviction that the Respondent in taking the decision against us and the subsequent resort to media propaganda to damnify us, and disparage our hard earned reputation, he was actuated by malice and lack of good faith and without any legal basis whatsoever”.
Mr Osafo and his colleague applicants, therefore, want the court to agree with them that the conduct of the AG “clearly amounts to a gross contumacious disrespect to the authority and sanctity of the law and, therefore, ought to be punished in accordance with the law”.
The applicants are also asking the court to make consequential orders including the setting aside of the impugned decision of the Respondent.