Edem Senanu, Co-chair of the Citizen Movement against Corruption, has asserted that senior presidential advisor Yaw Osafo-Maafo can advise President Akufo-Addo about the lapses in the asset declaration law for a review.
Yaw Osafo-Maafo has observed that the current asset declaration regime in Ghana is not transparent.
But Mr. Senanu, in an interview on 3FM, demanded the next line of action from the presidential advisor, emphasising that Mr. Osafo-Maafo can move a step further to initiate processes to have the law reviewed due to his political position.
The anti-graft campaigner described the asset declaration law in its current form as being “toothless”. He compared Ghana to Nigeria, which has a more comprehensive system for public officials to declare their assets.
“It is not effective, it is toothless the way it is now and our senior minister and senior advisor can just tell the president to make sure that we do a review of it and make it fit for purpose,” said Mr. Senanu on 3FM’s Hot Edition news programme on Tuesday, April 23.
He further noted that there’s no “political will” to ensure the law is reviewed because “if they really had that as something that they were bent on doing, it would have been done by now.”
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“The political will to the extent that we want to ensure everybody declares and nobody begins to play games with resources and fraudulently acquire [assets] should be benefiting the good people of this country.
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“You don’t just say we made an attempt in the initial drafting because everybody knows that no policy is static,” he said, adding that “policy tends to be dynamic based on changing circumstances, there is opportunity for policy reforms and legal reform,” he stated.