Mills' men refuse to declare assets

President John Evans Atta Mills is still lacking the will required to make use of the many platform promises he made in the run-up to the 2008 elections.

After failing rather woefully to 'reduce petrol drastically', as his popular platform refrain suggested, the President is reneging on yet another campaign promise of ensuring that all members of his government declare their assets immediately they were sworn into office.

After more than 11 months into the Mills administration, The Ghanaian Journal.com has it on authority that some members of his government are not too keen to declare, despite his stern warning in January this year to his ministers to declare their assets in 6 months.

Information available to The Ghanaian Journal.com show that as at June this year, only 35 officials out of a number of more than 80 have declared their assets. Latest checks however suggest that the number has remained the same for well over 5 months.

The apparent inaction of the Auditor General, the paper found, might have contributed to the passive response from the officials and other government appointees.

Earlier this year, the Auditor General posited as if he has enough muscle to compel government appointees to declare their assets; but events have proved that perhaps he and the government appointees all prefer the status quo to remain.

The Ghanaian Journal.com further discovered that the inaction of officialdom on the issue primarily stem from the fact that Parliamentarians, most of who are Ministers of State, are not so keen in passing amendments to the Assets Declaration regime.

Although many civil society organizations had proposed changes to the Assets Declaration Law through the Auditor General, when the proposed amendments were sent by the Auditor General to the Parliamentary Select Committee in charge of Legal and Constitutional matters, it was returned to the civil society organizations to review the recommendations.

If those amendments were considered, it would have afforded the Auditor General, the right to verify the contents and public disclosures of assets declared by a public official. These were corroborated by an official of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Mr. Vitus Azeem and Mr. Theophilus Cudjoe, a former Executive Secretary of the Serious Fraud Office at the launch of this year’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in Accra last Tuesday.

According to two officials, the inability of Parliament to deal with the issue meant that check and the fight against corruption were going to be extremely difficult for the current government and even successive ones if the current regime were to be maintained.

Mr. Azeem also questioned the rational behind the special sponsorship package to some 400 Muslims to this year’s Hajj and said it was a matter of public interest and therefore the people who picked up issues with government on the subject did the right thing.

According to him, it was necessary for the public to question the basis of the government support to the 400 Muslims in order to establish whether funds expended were sanctioned by Parliament.

“Questioning it is not a matter of religious intolerance because it was vital for Accountability,” Mr. Azeem stressed.