A Public Policy Analyst Professor Enoch Opoku Antwi has called for a lifestyle audit to be conducted on all Ministers, Members of Parliament (MPs) and public servants as part of measures to keep them in check.
He stated that Ghana has several laws that should measure public officers but those laws are not being enforced.
He added the asset declaration law mandates all public officers to declare their properties but nobody actually checks, periodically, whether what the officials stated on the forms is what they actually have.
Asked whether he supports calls for the lifestyle audit of all ministers, public servants and Members of Parliament while speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 Wednesday, July 26, Prof Antwi said “we need to audit all of them. We have lofty laws that are not working. asset declaration law meant that everybody was supposed to declare their assets but who even goes to verify that the assets they daclare are still what they have.”
He further said that persons claiming that the large amount of Dollars that the former Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources Cecilia Abena Dapaah kept in her home was a donation from funerals.
Prof Antwi said persons making that claim should credit Ghanaians with some level of intelligence because no funeral ceremony can generate that amount.
He said “what is humane about this? Look at the level of poverty going on in our system and if a minister is sitting on this kind of money, instead of the public condemning it people are rather saying it is a donation from funerals. We have done a lot of funerals in this country, funerals do not generate that kind of money.
“So anybody saying that, I don’t know what he thinks about Ghanaians. That is a big insult.”
He earlier said that whether in a private or public enterprise, a person cannot keep such an amount of money at home.
He believed that keeping such an amount of money at home put the lives of the person’s family members who live in the same house in danger.
“Whether private or public you cannot keep it at home,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, July 22.
He added “You put your entire household in danger. If the money is not legitimate that is when people will keep it in the house and we need to investigate the source of the money.”
Madam Abena Dapaah tendered her resignation on Saturday, July 22, barely 24 hours after the public discourse of her stolen cash.
Accepting her resignation, President Akufo-Addo described the work done by the former Bantama Member of Parliament as “excellent and productive”.
“It is with considerable regret that I accept your resignation, and I applaud your loyalty to the image and standing of the government,” he wrote on Saturday.
“The work you undertook during your period in Government was excellent and productive, and I thank you for your wholehearted contribution and devotion to the progress of the Government and the nation.”
In her resignation, Madam Abena Dapaah assured of her availability and cooperation with all state agencies to look into her matter, which she concedes has become a “hindrance” to the government at this “crucial” time.
“I have no doubt that at the end of the processes it will be established that I have conducted myself with integrity during my period in public service and I will be fully exonerated from all the allegations,” she further stated in her resignation letter.
President Akufo-Addo also expressed confidence that “at the end of the day, your integrity, whilst in office, will be fully established”.
She was arrested by the Office of the Special Prosecutor on Monday, July 25 in connection with the money in her house.