Story by: Issac Asare
Pressure Group, Occupy Ghana, is demanding the immediate passage of the 2022 Conduct of Public Officers Bill into law. The Group in a statement noted that the draft Bill proposes, among others, to remove the unconstitutional extension of time given to public officers to declare assets and liabilities, something that Occupy Ghana has campaigned for and demanded for well over five years.
The Group has therefore urged the President to convey an emergency Cabinet meeting for the sole purpose of approving the draft Bill.
Occupy Ghana’s demand comes in the wake of the saga that has unfolded after portions of the Achimota Forest Reserve were discovered to have been bequeathed to beneficiaries in the Will of late Forestry Commission CEO, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie also known as Sir John.
Occupy Ghana says they want the Attorney-General to provide a clear timeline on when he will submit the Bill to Parliament and also ensure that Parliament passes the Bill into law before it rises for the long vacation.
It added that it intends to make submissions on certain provisions affecting declaration of assets and liabilities by public officials and put forward key recommendations necessary to make those provisions better, stronger, and firmer than before.
The group described as worrying the practice where public officers acquire assets and yet fail to declare those assets and liabilities. It said even though the Constitution categorically demands that ”persons being appointed to public office be made to declare their assets before taking office, such constitutional provisions have been breached with impunity following the passage of Act 550 of 1998, a law that allows the declaration to be filed up to six months after taking office”.
The group in the statement laments that after two decades, public officers have faulted by failing to declare their assets and liabilities upon assumption of office adding that they either do not declare at all or sometimes engage in declaring what they do not possess with the expectation that they might acquire them while in office.
The statement said although the ”Office of the Auditor General and the Attorney General have been petitioned on the issue, nothing has been done.
”The draft Bill appears to be ready to be submitted to Parliament for passage into law,” according to Occupy Ghana.