Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramani Mahama has said it was wrong for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to have asked the Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, to proceed on leave. Former President Mahama said he will not do such things if he wins this year’s elections to become president again. Mr Domelevo was ordered to take his accumulated annual leave of 123 working days on Wednesday, July 1, 2020. A statement released by the Presidency and signed by the Director of Communication, Eugene Arhin, on Monday, 29 June 2020, explained that the decision to direct Mr Domelevo to take his accumulated annual leave was based on Sections 20(1) and Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), which apply to all workers including public officeholders such as the Auditor-General. Per the Act, a worker is entitled to annual leave with full pay, in a calendar year of continuous service which cannot be relinquished or forgone by the worker or the employer. Mr Domelevo’s is said to have taken only nine working days of his accumulated annual leave of 132 working days since his appointment as Auditor-General on December 30, 2016. The statement made reference to a 9 April 2009 directive by the third President of the 4th Republic, Prof John Evans Atta Mills, who asked then Auditor-General, Edward Duah Agyeman, to take his accumulated annual leave of approximately 264 working days. “President Akufo-Addo paid attention to the precedent in directing the Auditor-General to take his accumulated annual leave of 123 working days,” the statement by the Jubilee House had said. But speaking on Class FM Monday, September 14, Mr Mahama said: “I think the action by the President is wrong…he tries to base it on the precedent of President Mills but the point is, if something is wrong, you cannot use it as the basis of precedent and do the wrong thing,” he argued. “So, the Auditor-General’s office is defined in the Constitution and the Constitution tries to give the Auditor-General autonomy in terms of his work; like EOCO, like CHRAJ, like the Chief Justice, the Electoral Commission Chair, those constitutional bodies and, so, it’s not in the power of the President to ask the Auditor-General to go on leave. “If you do that, the precedent set tries to indicate that the President also has the power to ask the Electoral Commission Chair to take their accumulated leave or to ask the Chief Justice to take their accumulated leave, and, so, I think that he was hounded out of office.” By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana]]>