The former Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo has described the Economic and Organized Crime Office(EOCO) as a lawless institution which only takes pride in protecting public officers instead of protecting the public interest.
It comes on the back of the recent spat between the Office of the Special Prosecutor and EOCO over the money laundering investigation involving former Sanitation Minister Cecilia Dapaah.
Speaking to Lily Mohammed on GH Today on GHOne TV, Mr Domelevo said EOCO has failed to live up to its mandate due to undue political pressure.
“EOCO over the years has allowed itself to be unduly influenced by politics and they go after anybody who seems to be going after a politician. I suffered it myself. Unlawfully, EOCO decided to investigate what they claim was procurement breaches while they had no mandate to even investigate procurement. Their mandate doesn’t cover corruption and corruption related issues which the OSP Act defines to include procurement breaches but they came after me. Even when I drew their attention to the unlawful behaviour they said it didn’t lay in my mouth so I had to sue them at the court. It took the High Court to stop them. How lawless can such an institution be, like this? That they who are enforcing law do not even respect the law.
“Recently, I even heard another one where Prof. Stephen Adei made some allegations against the Roads Ministry and later I heard EOCO has investigated and cleared them. I said look at how lawless this institution has become, is it part of your mandate? If you have no mandate to investigate corruption and corruption related issues you should have directed that investigation to the appropriate institution. How do you clear them? What did you even investigate before clearing them. So it is really unfortunate that we set up a state institution to protect the public purse, instead of that they are protecting public officers.
Source: Kasapafmonline.com/102.5FM
