Kissi Agyebeng, the Special Prosecutor, has rejected calls for public disclosure of asset statements made by public officials, claiming that doing so would be ineffective and put people at needless risk.
He made it clear that he opposes the idea of making declared assets publicly accessible during his speech at the High-Level Conference on Ghana’s anti-corruption architecture, which was held in Accra on Friday, June 6 under the theme “Revitalising the Anti-Corruption Architecture in Africa: Ghana’s Accountability Journey.”
“I do not and I will not add my voice to calls for the publication of assets for public scrutiny. In our experience, it will be unhelpful and would merely subject public officers to inordinate public curiosity and a specter of the real likelihood of reprisals against the assets,” he said.
The Special Prosecutor emphasised that a transparent and useful structure that confirms asset declarations and guarantees compliance would be a stronger system than complete public disclosure.
“In my estimation, publication of who has declared or has not declared his assets in the context of a workable asset verification and treason model would be sufficient to assure the integrity of the asset declaration system,” he added.
by Constantine
NKONKONSA.com
