Accra, July 4, GNA - Mr. Richard Quayson, Deputy Commissioner for the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), on Wednesday said the Declaration of Asset and Disqualification Act 550 (1998) for Public Office Holders had been one of the most potent tools that had checked corruption in the country.

"Nevertheless the practicality and effectiveness of this law has often been questioned by the public, who have raised various degrees of concerns with regard to the levels of disclosures of such assets by public office holders and public access to information on such disclosures," he said.

Mr. Quayson, who was addressing participants at the close of a seminar on the Asset Disclosure Regime in Ghana, said CHRAJ had also received various reports of allegations of non-compliance or contraventions of the law for intervention and appropriate actions taken on the results of the investigations.

Members of Parliament, legal brains and representatives from agencies responsible for the monitoring and investigation of public officers attended the two-day workshop, which was organised jointly by the GII, CDD-Ghana, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Audit Service.

Mr. Quayson said nearly 10 years since the law was passed, it was reasonable to question its performance and seek the way forward to strengthening it, promote awareness and support for the new guidelines on conflict of interest guidelines and support efforts to increase information exchange among key accountability institutions. He urged the public to boldly give genuine leads to information concerning suspected cases of corruption among public office holders to allow the Commission to conduct investigations and establish the facts without much public interferences.

Mr. Quayson, however, cautioned that due to the sensitivity of the nature of Assert Declaration, with its security implications, care must be taken not to violate the privacy rights of such officers when applying the law.

Ms. Linda Ofori-Kwafo, Acting Executive Secretary, Ghana Initiative Integrity (GII), said the seminar which aimed at strengthening the Assets Declaration Law in Ghana, became necessary when GII's survey revealed that Ghanaians, including public officials to whom the law applied, were ignorant of the importance of the Act. She noted that GII saw an effective asset declaration regime as an effective anti-corruption tool to deter abuse of power, protect public assets and interest and promote integrity. She called on Government to expedite action on the passage of the Information Bill to facilitate public access to information on activities of public officers and how they used the Government purse. Ms Ofori-Kwafo said Government must also adopt and implement with dispatch the conflict of interest guidelines for public officials developed by CHRAJ and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition. "A strong code of conduct for public servants as well as political appointees, especially those in position to hire, fire and influence resource allocation was needed as a matter of urgency," the Executive Secretary added.

Other speakers at a seminar called for the enforcement of the Assets Declaration Act to mandate all public officers to publicly disclose their assets.

They identified weakness in the administration of the country's assets declaration regime and lack of sanctions for those who failed to do so as major setbacks to the fight against corruption. Speaking on the "Importance and Role of Assets Declaration Law in Ghana: Challenges in Implementation", Mr Kojo Pumpuni Asante, Governance and Legal Policy Research Officer of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), said compliance with the obligation had been weak from the military era to date.

He said the sensitivity attached to the nature of assets declaration had made it difficult to achieve effectiveness, as most public officers refused to oblige with the directive.

Mr Asante describing the directive as "a taboo subject" to some people explained that some public officers claimed that declaring their assets would mean publicly inviting thieves to attack them. He mentioned lack of awareness of provisions of the Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and Disqualification) Act 550, unavailability of the forms and lack of coordination with institutions under which declarants were employed as some of the challenges to effective enforcement.

Mr Asante said there was therefore the need to make the declarations more accessible to the public and empower the Auditor-General, who was the custodian of asset declaration forms, to verify and regularly publish names of those who declared their assets. He said what constituted a gift for a public officer should also be clearly spelt out in the Act, adding that, declaring assets of spouses and dependent's children of such officers must also be considered. Mr Asante also called for a legislative instrument that would empower CHRAJ to apply stringent sanctions for officers who violated the law.

Mr Dennis Weller, Acting Mission Director of USAID said fighting corruption and controlling ethnical conduct in the public service was a priority to achieve economic progress.

He said USAID was committed to supporting the cause of ensuring public office accountability in Ghana.

Mr Lawrence called for strong advocacy, saying it was difficult for such critical reforms like the revision of the asset disclosure law to move forward and urged civil society and the media to play their watchdog roles to ensure that public officers remained accountable to society.