Absence of register of state assets, recipe for stealing
A complete inventory of assets and properties of the state does not exist and so the size, location, condition and value of those assets and properties are not known.
The Administrator-General of the Presidential Estates Unit (PEU), Mr Joe Issachar, who made this known, said the situation created room for the loss, stealing and misuse of state assets and properties as reflected in the Auditor-General’s annual reports.
According to him, many government vehicles did not bear government or ‘GV’ registration numbers and so they were often misused.
He said in other instances, some government vehicles were registered in the name of the motor companies from which the vehicles were purchased.
Mr Issachar was making a presentation on the progress and challenges of the PEU at a two-day workshop on the review of the Presidential (Transition) Act, 2012 (Act 845) at Akosombo in the Eastern Region at the weekend.
It was organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) under its Ghana Political Parties Programme (GPPP), with members of the Parliamentary Committees on Subsidiary Legislation and Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, as well as representatives of some political parties in attendance.
The objective of the workshop was to review the Presidential (Transition) Act to make it a better workable document, drawing lessons from its implementation and looking at the way forward.
Mr Issachar said the 2012 Transition Team identified a number of implementation challenges with respect to the Act, and noted that in its current form, the aims and objectives of Act 845 could not be fully met, especially when there was transfer from one political party to another.
“There are certain aspects of the Act that are so broad; we need clarity in some areas so that we will be clear on what we are doing,” he told the Daily Graphic later in an interview.
The PEU administrator-general said a proposal on the challenges identified in the Act had been presented to the Presidency for consideration to fine-tune the law.
He also said there was the need to have a proper public sector assets management practice in order to make ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) more accountable.
Mr Issachar said the administrator-general of the PEU should be clothed with the power to receive, investigate and make recommendations to the President and Parliament on reports of misuse of state assets and properties.
Earlier at the opening of the workshop, a former Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Mike Oquaye, said there was the need to go beyond Act 845 in its current form to include arrangements on the tenure of top civil servants such as the Inspector General of Police, to give security to their tenure in office.
He added that considering the transition experiences in 2001 and 2009, it was important to look at matters of transition carefully.
The Deputy Majority Leader in Parliament, Mr Alfred Agbesi, urged the participants to give serious consideration to the amendment of the Act in order to fashion a better workable procedure in law to guide the transition process.
For his part, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Subsidiary Legislation, Mr Ofosu Asamoah, who also represented the Minority Leaders, said the past transition processes had not been easy, and therefore, urged his colleagues to do their best to improve the Act.
Representing the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Alban Bagbin, the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Dayi, Mr George Loh, expressed the hope that MPs would work in a non-partisan manner to fine-tune the Act.
A Policy Analyst at the IEA, Dr Michael Ofori-Mensah, said although Ghana was touted as a beacon of democracy in Africa, there was the need to properly develop institutions such as the transition arrangements to strengthen the country’s democracy.
By Kofi Yeboah/Daily Graphic/Ghana
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