ORAL team collected ‘garbage data’ without verification – Former Auditor-General

Former Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo has acknowledged that during his tenure, the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) initiative compiled raw, unverified data including submissions he described as “garbage.”

During an interview session with the media on Tuesday, October 22, Mr. Domelevo explained that the ORAL team’s role was primarily to receive complaints and documentation from the public, rather than to investigate or verify their authenticity.

“I completely agree,” he said, responding to the Deputy Attorney General’s remarks that the estimated $21 billion expected to be recovered under ORAL was exaggerated. “Those figures were simply the total of the complaints received. After an audit or investigation, those amounts could either increase or decrease — it was possible.”

He emphasized that the true measure of the figures would be determined in court. “The actual test is in the courtroom,” Mr. Domelevo noted. “When you get there, the figures may drop significantly. And even if we win a case worth $21 or $22 billion, collecting that money is a completely different challenge.”

Drawing from his experience, he added that successful judgments do not always translate into recovered funds. “Winning a case doesn’t automatically mean you’ll collect the money,” he explained. “Look at the Woyome case — the Supreme Court ordered payment, but it took a long time, and even now, I’m not sure it has been fully settled. Recovering funds is another ball game altogether.”

Mr. Domelevo further clarified that the ORAL data represented unscreened entries. “We simply gathered data and added them up. We didn’t investigate,” he said. “Some complaints were baseless — just noise. But we collected everything, including the garbage.”

When asked to elaborate on his use of the word “garbage,” he explained that the team received all submissions without exclusion. “Nobody was turned away,” he said. “If someone came and claimed that a person was involved in a certain deal and quoted an amount, we simply looked at the documents they provided and recorded it. We did not ask for proof or substantiation.”

He also disclosed that some complaints were received via email, with no supporting documents. “Some of them just came through emails. What if the sender made it up?” he asked.

According to him, his background as an auditor made him aware that some documents were likely unreliable. “You can receive documents that appear genuine, but when you test them, they may have no substance or authenticity,” he said. “So, yes, there was a lot of garbage data — that’s undeniable.”

Mr. Domelevo also commended the Attorney General for addressing public misconceptions surrounding alleged political interference in ORAL’s operations. “It’s good that the Attorney General took the time to clarify that no legal team or member of the NDC attempted to bribe their way through,” he said. “That clarification was very necessary.”