Former rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof Stephen Adei, has called on the government to replace Ghana’s current asset declaration law with a new one.
“This foolish thing, you declare your assets, and it is locked up in a locker, and nobody will even see it again. What we need is an open declaration. So that when you go in and when you are going out everybody will know.
“When you are going in, and you declare your asset, somebody will say, ‘Stephen Addai is lying when he became a Minister of Education; he built 10 houses’. If you declare that you have two houses, other people will say you lied, and it should be published,” Prof. Adei said on GhOne TV.
His comments come after the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) charged the embattled former Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Madam Cecilia Abena Dapaah, for failing to declare her assets within 30 days.
Per the Charge Sheet filed on October 6, 2023, Cecilia Dapaah is facing a count of “failing to comply with a lawful demand of an authorized officer of the Office of the Special Prosecutor in the Performance of his function, contrary to section 69(1)(a) of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959).”
The brief facts of the case accompanying the charge, according to the OSP, were that Madam Cecilia Dapaah was, until July 22, 2023, the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources.
Ms Dapaah’s court hurdles began when seven persons, including her house help, were hauled before the court for stealing $1 million, €300,000, and other valuables from her residence.
The OSP subsequently filed a motion to freeze her bank accounts, and monies recovered after searching her residence.
Aside from the funds in her accounts, US$590,000 and over GH¢2.730,000 were also recovered from her residence on July 24.