Former Auditor-General Daniel Yaw Domelevo has acknowledged that the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) initiative under his tenure relied on unverified data—some of which he described as “garbage”.
Appearing on JoyNews on October 22, Mr Domelevo explained that the ORAL team merely compiled complaints and documents from the public without conducting investigations to confirm their authenticity.
“I completely agree,” he said, responding to the Deputy Attorney-General’s assertion that the estimated $21 billion to be recovered under ORAL was exaggerated.
“I remember I had an interview with you earlier, and I said that those figures are just the summation of the complaints which came. And I even said that after an audit or investigation, those figures may balloon further or may shrink. It is possible,” he added.
He noted that the real test of the figures would come in court. “The actual game is in the courtroom.”
“When you get to the courtroom, the amount may reduce significantly. And I caution. I remember saying that I know even if we should win the 21 or close to $22 billion, collecting it is another game altogether,” he stated.
Mr Domelevo emphasized that even court victories do not guarantee recovery of funds. “There are two lawyers that will tell you that even the fact that you have won the case in court does not necessarily mean you will collect the money,” he said, citing the Woyome case as an example.
He admitted that the ORAL data was raw and unfiltered. “As for us, we just collected data and summed it up. We didn’t do any investigation,” he said. “A preliminary investigation even may show that some of the complaints were just noise… including the garbage.”
Clarifying his choice of words, he said, “Nobody came to us that we turned away… Some even came in the form of emails. What about if the person is just making it up?”
Mr Domelevo also commended the Attorney-General for addressing misconceptions about political interference in ORAL’s work, calling it “very, very, very necessary.”
