Let’s amend assets declaration law

Currently, the law on assets declaration does not place emphasis on making the declared assets of public officials public, thereby defeating the purpose of the declaration in the first place.

Anyone who is desirous of knowing the assets of a public official when that official takes office requires a court to grant that permission before that information will be passed on.

The current status of the law on assets declaration (Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and Disqualification) Act 1998 (Act 55) does not augur well for our democracy.

This is why we believe the suggestion by a former Auditor General, Prof. Edward Dua Agyeman, that the assets declaration regime should be extended to all public officials and their spouses couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Daily Graphic believes that such a move will prevent situations, as have happened in the past, where government appointees, questioned about some assets they had acquired illegally, said such assets belonged to their spouses.

We believe that now is the time to fine-tune the existing law as President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo makes appointments to form his government and run state agencies and organisations.

Apart from shielding the information on the assets of appointees from public view or scrutiny, the focus of the law is currently only on Article 71 office holders, such as the President, his vice, the Speaker of Parliament, his two deputies, other leaders in Parliament, the Chief Justice, other Justices and ministers of state.

However, the Daily Graphic is of the view that for the law to be effective, that clause which requires the permission of the court to be sought before the information on an appointee’s assets is released must be scrapped.

The law also needs a total overhaul to include the declaration of assets by spouses and family members of appointees.

We believe that it must also be extended to managing directors and chief executives of public organisations who handle state funds and formulate policies for the running of the country.

The heads of such government agencies and their spouses must also be made to declare their assets, while such declarations must be published periodically for the benefit of the public.

After all, democracy is all about accountability, and accountability is transparency.

For the public to dispel the perception that public officials are in to milk the nation of its resources and that appointments are made by governments as a reward to faithful members of the ruling political party, we believe that the regime of the law on assets declaration must be expanded, as suggested by the former Auditor General and concurred by the Daily Graphic.

Corruption has become a pervasive and endemic phenomenon which countless governments, including the new one, have pledged to fight.

We hold the view that the Nana Akufo-Addo government will do itself and the whole country a world of good if it champions an amendment to the law on assets declaration.

All those appointed to run the affairs of state must not only be seen to be working for the masses; the public must also believe that those people are working in the best interest of the people, not for personal gain.

An amendment to the law on assets declaration holds one of the keys.