Review assets declaration regime — Haruna Iddrisu

Page 17, July 11, 2008
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, yesterday called for a review of the country’s assets declaration regime of public office holders to enable the law to achieve its desired results.
He said the country’s current assets declaration regime makes it impossible to determine whether a public officer possesses or had acquired disproportionate assets.
“The absence of a strong assets declaration regime encourages graft culture, as it makes it difficult to take quick and corrective measures against corrupt practices by public officers.
In a statement on the floor of Parliament, Mr Iddrisu said that to make the country’s assets declaration meaningful and ensure probity in public life, verification should be easy and open.
“There must be some institutional mechanisms to crosscheck whether what is declared is correct”, he stated.
Mr Haruna, therefore, stressed the need for the country to develop a new mechanism to monitor such declarations as well as compare the income of a person to his declared assets.
“This is the only way we can check and charge public officials for illicit enrichments if they are deemed to live above their means and have brazenly acquired property/assets”, he said.
By so doing, he said assets that had been acquired illicitly could be traced, frozen and forfeited.
Mr Haruna also called for a system that would make it an obligation for public office holders to justify their assets which were far above their legitimate sources of income.
He said that there was the need to introduce a system of periodically monitoring assets and lifestyles of public officers, where appropriate, by an independent agency.
Contributing to the statement, the MP for Tamale Central, Mr Inusah Fuseini, said concerns had been raised by the general public about the lifestyle of public office holders.
He therefore called for the expansion of Article 286 of the 1992 Constitution on assets declaration to include spouses and children of holders of public officers.
“The reality on the ground is that because of the loophole in the law, people have found it convenient to hide their ill-gotten wealth in the names of their spouses and children”, he stated.
For his part, the MP for Ofoase/Ayirebi, Mr David Oppon-Kusi, stated that corruption should be fought from all fronts adding that assets declaration was one way of fighting corruption.
He was, however, of the view that there should be a comprehensive approach to fight corruption and explained that institutions such as Parliament and the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), among others should be strengthened.
When he caught the eye of the Speaker, the MP for Lower West Akim, Mr Samuel Sallas-Mensah, commended Mr Haruna for his statement and hinted that an anti-corruption coalition was currently looking at the Asset Declaration Act.
He stated that preparations were underway for the introduction of a Legislative Instrument (L.I) in Parliament to enable the Auditor-General to work effectively towards the implementation of the Asset Declaration Act.
The Deputy Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, noted that it had become ritualistic for the issue of declaration of assets to be raised whenever the term of a particular parliament was coming to an end and explained that the issue was also raised in 2000 and 2004.
He, therefore, called on the House to take a definite action on the matter once and for all.
The Minority Leader, Mr Alban Bagbin, explained that the current law on acquisition of property was that spouses were joint holders of all property acquired in a couple’s their lifetime.
As a result, he called for the amendment of the Asset Declaration Law to bring it in conformity the tenets of the acquisition of property by spouses.