Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has observed that Senior Presidential Advisor Yaw Osafo-Maafo must present a memo to President Akufo-Addo stating his position on the asset declaration law for public officials.
Mr. Osafo-Maafo, addressing a forum on open government partnerships and construction sector transparency in Accra on Tuesday, April 23, maintained that the current asset declaration law in Ghana is not transparent and thus must be reviewed.
“In Ghana, when you become a minister of state, at all levels, asset declaring is the first thing you do. You declare your asset and file same at the Auditor General.
“What I personally don’t like about this law is that after you declare the assets, everything is kept confidential between the Auditor General and yourself.
“Therefore, it becomes very difficult for anybody to challenge the authenticity of your declaration,” said Mr. Osafo-Maafo.
However, according to Martin Kpebu, the Senior Presidential Advisor must go a step further by submitting a letter to the president pointing out the lapses he has identified in the current asset declaration region.
Contributing to the discussions on the Asset Declaration Regime on The Key Points on Saturday, April 27, the human rights lawyer noted that “the summary is that we expect Mr. Osafo-Maafo to send a memo or a letter to the president stating his position, at least to reiterate, just in case the president did not hear him speak.”
Mr. Kpebu advised that “he should do a formal letter” owing to the former senior minister’s pedigree as a statesman.
This, according to him, would increase the level of support from citizens to ensure that the current law is reviewed.
“He should do an open letter and perhaps seek audience with the president and announce same to us so that we can give more support,” he stated.
No recorded cases of attacks on chiefs
Martin Kpebu further dismissed the assertion by Mr. Osafo-Maafo that some chiefs feared being attacked and hence objected to publicly declaring their assets.
He stressed that there has not been any incident of such attacks on chiefs whose assets were made public since the overthrow of Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
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“One thing we suffer in Ghana is that we often don’t read out history. That is a problem,” said Mr. Kpebu, adding, “You will find people make arguments on things that we had sorted out long ago.”
“When Kwame Nkrumah was kicked out, the Jiagge Commission paraded all of his appointees and they declared all their assets. We do not have any single recorded case that armed robbers went on any of the ambassadors, the ministers, et cetera.
He continued, “There is also the Olenu Commission Report and the Apalu Commission Report on Kwame Nkrumah’s assets, and in 1978 and 79 we had SMCD 216, etc., and we’ve dealt with it before.”
Public Officers Code of Conduct bill won’t be passed this year- Kpebu
Furthermore, Mr. Kpebu called on the President to allow for a revision of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials bill for broader consultation.
He noted, “One of the key provisions that we are not negotiating about is that there will be a publication of all the assets.”
According to him, the government must consider publishing these assets on a dedicated website to cut down on the cost of newspaper publications.
He said this will allow more people, despite their location, to access the details of public officials who have declared their assets under the law.
About Asset Declaration law
Corruption in Ghana involves the public sector and private people alike.
For this reason, since the 1970s, Ghana has adopted a declaration of assets and liabilities by public office holders as the “more potent tool, among other strategies, in fighting corruption in the public sector.”
Moreover, two main laws have regulated asset declaration: Article 286(1) of the 1992 Constitution and the Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and Disqualification) Act, 1998 (Act 550).
Act 550 provides the framework and guidelines for asset declaration in Ghana as a tool to “combat corruption among public office holders.”
The asset declaration process involves the public official declaring his or her assets, income, and liabilities on assumption of office.
The process is repeated every four years and also upon ending the term of office.