Senior Presidential Advisor Yaw Osafo-Maafo is advocating for increased transparency in the declaration of assets owned by public officials, emphasising its critical role in bolstering accountability within Ghana’s governance framework.
Osafo-Maafo pointed out that while current regulations mandate public officials, including ministers of state and select public sector personnel, to declare their assets to the auditor general, the lack of transparency in this process hampers accountability.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the current asset declaration framework, Osafo-Maafo highlighted that the confidentiality maintained between the auditor general and individuals makes it difficult for scrutiny and accountability.
“In Ghana, when you become a minister of state or a public sector worker at certain levels, the first thing you do is to declare your assets and file same to the auditor general. What I personally don’t like about this law is that after you declare your asset, everything is kept confidential between the auditor general and yourself and therefore, it becomes difficult for anybody to challenge the authenticity of the declaration.
“I think that we should declare the assets but there should be a certain level of transparency in the declaration of the assets so that people can assess what is declared by certain procedures.”
During an address at a stakeholder engagement of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) at the Mövenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra, Osafo-Maafo highlighted the prevailing cultural norms around inheritance, which he said were given in opposition during the formulation of the Declaration of Asset and Disqualification Act.
“I happened to be consulting for somebody when we were drawing up the constitution of the republic and I was championing the publication of the assets declared and the chiefs were so furious with me and said they would be killed when people knew what they had.”