Some members of the group
OccupyGhana has called on the government to immediately ensure the passage of the draft Conduct of the Public Officers’ Bill, 2022 into law.
A statement issued on Tuesday, July 24, 2023 said the bill when passed will among others help, “curb the trend where public officers acquire unexplained wealth, especially where their known economic means cannot justify such acquisitions or wealth.”
According to the group, the government has failed to act swiftly to ensuring the passage of the bill as expected despite numerous correspondence with state actors.
“For the umpteenth time, Ghanaians are confronted with another scenario of the suspected, unexplained wealth of a public officer, and staring at the apparent impotence of the law in dealing with this, outside article 286(4) of the Constitution. That article simply provides that an asset declared to have been acquired while in public office, ‘which is not reasonably attributable to income, gift, loan, inheritance or any other reasonable source shall be deemed to have been acquired in contravention of this Constitution,” it added.
It stated that the law would also help reinforce the asset declaration regime in line with article 286 (1) of the country’s constitution.
It stated that Office of the Special Prosecutor has also failed to act to ensure the amendment and passage of the bill despite earlier assurances given by the OSP in October, 2021.
“Our public campaign to remove this offensive unconstitutionality yielded no discernible results, until we wrote to the Attorney-General on 1 December 2019 to demand steps to amend the law. Thankfully, on 8 January 2020, the then Attorney-General wrote to OccupyGhana to agree to amend the law by deleting the unconstitutional extension of time, and indicating that that office was seeking Cabinet approval to prepare the necessary amendment bill to be subsequently laid before Parliament for enactment,” it added.
It therefore urged Ghanaians especially civil society groups to push for the passage of the conduct of the Public Officers’ bill into law given the government unwillingness to approve the bill for onward transmission to parliament for enactment.
“In our view, the government appears inexplicably unwilling or unprepared to approve the Bill and transmit it to Parliament for enactment. This is strikingly ironic because the passage of this Bill was a campaign promise at page 105 of the New Patriotic Party’s 2020 Manifesto, Table 1.13 on Governance, Corruption and Public Accountability, items 235 and 236.
Even the admitted IMF pressure does not appear to us to be having any effect. We are concerned that this deliberate dithering will remain until the people of Ghana take a firm interest in the Bill and what it says, and then demand that Cabinet does what is required under the circumstances.” the statement added
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah