{"id":17999,"date":"2019-12-29T12:35:13","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T12:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=17999"},"modified":"2019-12-29T12:35:13","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T12:35:13","slug":"current-asset-declaration-regime-is-toothless-bulldog-cdd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2019\/12\/29\/current-asset-declaration-regime-is-toothless-bulldog-cdd\/","title":{"rendered":"Current asset declaration regime is &#8216;toothless bulldog&#8217; &#8211; CDD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The executive director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh, says the country&#8217;s current asset declaration regime is ineffective in the fight against corruption.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the assets declaration regime that we currently have is for many of us, almost a toothless bulldog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on JoyNwes\u2019 Newsfile programme held at the University of Professional Studies, Accra, Saturday, December 28, Prof. Prempeh said the current asset declaration regime was of such an insignificant standard to hold public office holders accountable to it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is such a minimum standard; you declare, it\u2019s sealed, the public does not have access to it, [the public] can\u2019t come with evidence to challenge what you\u2019ve declared to own or to owe and all of that. So it\u2019s a pretty really minimal standard, not, for me, sufficient as part of the toolkit in the fight against corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8xHJgOJE1Zg?list=PLB3FD32108C6F095D\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>He said this in response to a question asked by investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni concerning the yet-to-be-sworn-in Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah\u2019s inability to declare to his assets before he was sworn in as a judge at the High Court and the Appeals Court judge.<\/p>\n<p>According to Manasseh, Justice Anin-Yeboah\u2019s inability to declare his assets at those times of his career, serves a precedent for others to also refuse to declare their assets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the President goes ahead to swear him in, can we ever hold any person responsible if they don\u2019t declare their assets?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justice Anin-Yeboah had revealed, during his Parliamentary vetting, that before being sworn in as a High Court judge and later as a judge at the\u00a0Appeals Court, he had not declared his assets.<\/p>\n<p>He had, however, declared his assets privately when he was appointed a Supreme Court judge.<\/p>\n<p>Prof. H.K. Prempeh in relation to that said, the inquiry into asset declaration should have been the work of the Executive and not the Legislature as it had happened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s important enough that it should have been the task of the Executive\u00a0to do that behind closed doors before putting the nominee out than to be exposed in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the lax nature of the executive arm of government concerning asset declaration has diminished its significant role in the fight against corruption.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you intend to nominate a person, among the things you do in a due diligence test, you should call them in and run them through a battery of questions. \u2018Have you declared your assets? Did you do this? Did you do that?\u2019 This is not something that should even get to Parliament\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<p>He suggested that Ghana emulates other asset declaration regimes like South Africa\u2019s, where asset declaration for public office holders is compulsory and is publicised. In addition, the assets of close relatives of the public office holder are also declared but kept confidential.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This he claims will be a more effective way to deal with corruption in the country.<\/p>\n<p>source:myjoyonline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The executive director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh, says the country&#8217;s current asset declaration regime is ineffective in the fight against corruption. \u201cI think the assets declaration regime that we currently have is for many of us, almost a toothless bulldog.\u201d Speaking on JoyNwes\u2019 Newsfile programme held at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1],"tags":[4836,4553,1648,11110,6863,1467,2437,1384,10507,913,4313,192,4663,2264,2416,5731,6030,12005,10419,5093,6043,4910,1198,3805,5157,244,1825,3200,214,6348,3954,10415],"class_list":["post-17999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-access","tag-accra","tag-africa","tag-asset","tag-asset-declaration","tag-bulldog","tag-chief-justice","tag-corruption","tag-court","tag-democratic","tag-executive-director","tag-ghana","tag-ghana-center-for-democratic-development-cdd-ghana","tag-government","tag-h","tag-high-court","tag-journalist","tag-judge","tag-justice","tag-justice-anin-yeboah","tag-lax","tag-manasseh-azure-awuni","tag-parliament","tag-president","tag-prof-h-kwasi-prempeh","tag-south-africa","tag-supreme-court","tag-supreme-court-judge","tag-university","tag-us","tag-will","tag-work"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}