Our next fight is on asset declaration – Ace Ankomah warns

Ace Anan Ankomah, a legal practitioner and member of Occupy Ghana, has warned that the next fight for his group is to take on Public Officials who have refused to declare their assets whilst in office.

According to him, it is not just the politicians who are required to declare their assets but “all public servants of a certain level are supposed to declare their assets".

“From our checks, 10,000 Ghanaians must declare their assets…..they haven’t done it, we are giving them notice…..we are coming,” he said at a reading forum in Takoradi.

Ankomah indicated that what his group (Occupy Ghana) seeks to do is that they are doing everything possible for the 10,000 Ghanaian public servants to declare their assets electronically so that with one search command, the Auditor General can check whose asset is on the system.

“A politician can declare that he has a house at Anaji and give a house number when there is no house on it; it is not checked. So by the time you check he has used the money to build the house……because he declared the house when it was bear land…” he explained.

“There is the need for the Auditor General to have a database where they [politicians] declare their assets and he can do electronic checking?” Anan noted.

Ace Ankomah believes that asset declaration should be made public and not in confidentiality.

“If you want to take public office, let’s know what you have,” he stressed.

He added that the Occupy Ghana will be forced to seek Supreme Court interpretation if there is a confusion as to whether or not assets declaration should be made public or in confidentiality.