Private Legal Practitioner, Maurice Ampaw has posited that the asset declaration law of Ghana does not hold citizens, especially Public Officeholders to the highest levels of accountability.
He noted that the law is just in writing but in practicality, it is not being enforced by the Attorney General’s office.
According to him, Ghanaian politicians and other high ranking public officers submit their sealed asset declaration documents to the Attorney General’s office where the seal is never broken, affirming the fact that any public office holder can do whatever he or she wants without being punished.
He shared that on paper, these public officers will have less than two properties and acquire other properties whilst in office which cannot be traced back to them.
Speaking in an interview on the Epa Hoa Daben political talk show with Sefah-Danquah, Maurice Ampaw said,
“Our public office holders are abusing the law now and most of them currently use estate management companies to beat the system. They buy properties and go into secret agreements with these property management companies and use them as their fronts. These companies on paper are regarded as owners of these properties meanwhile, they are actually owned by ministers and some top government officials”.
Maurice further revealed that some of these public office holders use names of deceased family members to register properties obtained illegally to insulate themselves from prosecution.
“And this is what most of our ministers and their deputies do”, he said.
On his authority, the asset declaration act goes against the principles of privacy and he expects the properties of politicians to be gazetted before they take public office.
“Their properties prior to their appointments need to be gazetted and announced to the hearing of the general Ghanaian populace”.
The lawyer who agrees that asset declaration is the only way to prevent corruption, fraud and unexplained wealth charged government to apply the law to the ordinary Ghanaian too.
“You will see a young boy with no business buying cars and building mansions. The combined sum of all these is worth more than a District Assembly’s Common Fund and no one is explaining or asking for the source of such wealth?” He queried.
Incidents of corruption in Ghana’s public sector has been recorded on countless occasions without any drastic measures being taken against culprits.
In recent years, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Adjenim Boateng Adjei, was removed from office for selling contracts. It was alleged that the CEO who prior to his appointment had a couple of ten thousands in his personal accounts had earned a couple of extra zeros on his account balance, increasing his personal wealth to a couple of millions.
Ghanaians’ attention was once again drawn to the illegal acquisition of wealth by public officers when a leaked divorce suit from the wife of the Director of Communications surfaced online.
His wife revealed that in their eight-year marriage, he had acquired 32 apartments at Bubuashie and Tuba, houses at East Legon, AU village, Teshie, and Ada, which Gloria Arhin claims they jointly acquired during their marriage.
Other moveable properties include luxurious cars, including one Ford F150 vehicle, Toyota Avalon, Toyota Lexus, Toyota Tundra, Hyundai Elantra, and others.
Gloria Assan Arhin is also praying the Court to ask her husband to pay her a sum of two million cedis (GH¢2,000,000).
Many Ghanaians are expressing shock at the colossal number of properties acquired by the couple who tied the knot on February 2, 2013.
Eugene Arhin responding to the divorce suit filed by his wife, said many of the claims made by his wife in the suit are not true.
But he refused to touch on them saying he does not want a public banter because of his children
By: Joel Sanco
