By Senior Presidential Advisor Yaw Osafo-Maafo is championing heightened transparency in the disclosure of assets held by public officials, underscoring its pivotal role in fortifying accountability within Ghana’s governance system.
Osafo-Maafo underscored that existing regulations necessitate public officials, such as ministers of state and designated public sector figures, to disclose their assets to the auditor general. However, he lamented the lack of transparency surrounding this procedure, which he believes undermines accountability.
Expressing discontent with the current asset declaration framework, Osafo-Maafo emphasized that the confidentiality maintained between the auditor general and individuals impedes effective 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.”
Speaking at a stakeholder engagement event of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) at the Mövenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra, Osafo-Maafo brought attention to the enduring cultural norms related to inheritance, which, he noted, were a point of contention during the drafting of the Declaration of Assets 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.”
