Accra, July 18, GNA - The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) on Wednesday said a comprehensive set of guidelines for public officers issued last year was to assist public officers identify, manage and resolve issues on conflict of interest (COI).
"This has become necessary because CHRAJ's investigation conducted revealed that many public officers were either consciously violating these provisions or did not appreciate the implications of the constitutional provision relating to COI)", CHRAJ commissioner Emile Short said on Wednesday.
At a day's workshop for Members of Parliament (MPs) in Accra on the guidelines, Mr Short noted that it was to facilitate the CHRAJ mandate of enforcing the constitutional provision on COI.
According to him, Article 284 of the 1992 constitution provided that public officials should not put themselves in positions where their personal interest conflicted with the performance of their duty. He also stated that Article 287 of the constitution mandated CHRAJ to investigate allegations that contravened or did not comply with, among other things relating to COI and cited instances where district assemblies and a former insurance commissioner executed contracts which were in conflict of interest to their offices.
The appearance of COI, he explained, became present when the potential for personal interest of the public officer clashes with the performance of the functions of his or her office and added that such situations undermined the confidence the public had in public officers.
He said it was therefore essential that all public officers identified COI situations and deal with them when necessary. Acting Commissioner Anna Bossman said the workshop for the MP was necessitated by the central role in fighting corruption and the fact that parliament should be part of any anti corruption effort in the country.
She said the ethics of good standards in public life meant that every public officer should serve in the public interest with fairness and noted that "it is indeed very productive to work in close collaboration with MPs to continuously heighten public awareness about the high cost of corruption and the ways to fight it.
Mrs Linda Ofori-Kwafo, Programmes Manager, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) said the workshop was in line with an anti corruption project of GII for a period of two years with three main goals of strengthening the assets declaration, promoting awareness and support for the guidelines on COI and to support effort to increase information exchange among key accountability institutions.
She said the workshop was very appropriate especially at a time when COI was one of the key issues that MPs had to grapple with as individuals, public officers and lawmakers.
According to her, international practices recommended that any effort to tackle COI should address procedures, identify, manage and resolve COI situations through public education on COI policy, training, counselling, leadership and commitment.
She said research data confirmed the persistence of corruption in Ghana in spite of progress in democratic governance and noted that it was acknowledged that corruption continued to undermine the economic and social development and in particular poverty reduction efforts in the country.
"The GII commends that public officers should be given training on COI before taking on public appointments and also undergo periodic courses on COI while in office. Such training, would go a long way to help public officers manage COI situations in the discharge of their duties", she said.
