By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, June 19, GNA - Corruption Watch Ghana (CW), a civil society initiative led by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Ghana, has premiered a documentary on asset recovery and management in Ghana.
The objective of the 15-minute documentary is to highlight the challenges of asset recovery efforts in the country and to mobilize policy makers, implementers, relevant stakeholders and the general public towards strengthening efforts at asset recovery in Ghana.
Ghana has made several legal provisions for the regulations of asset recovery and management regime.
The Police for instance, can seize assets under the Narcotic Drugs (Control, Enforcement and Sanction) Law, 1990.
The laws setting up the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) Act, 2010 (Act 804) and the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2008 (Act 749), as amended allow the State to freeze, confiscate and forfeit asset of corrupt people.
The newly established Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), under the OSP Act, (Act 959) and specifically, the OSP (Operations) Regulations 2018 has an even extended mandate to manage, seized, frozen or confiscated assets.
Nevertheless, the application of the law prior to the enactment of the OSP Act exposed some gaps and challenges in the implementation of the country’s asset recovery regime.
Some of the challenges include delays in asset identification and ownership, failure of investigators and prosecutors to identify assets during trial and prior sentencing or make case for asset recovery during trial.
In some instances, tracking assets have also proven difficult; again, the level of public awareness on the asset recovery and management regime in Ghana is low.
In a panel discussion after the premiere, Mrs Jacqueline Avotri, Head of Public Affairs at EOCO, said asset management was a national issue and EOCO had been mandated to spearhead the establishment of an asset management unit/office.
She noted that this was critical because after assets had been recovered it becomes necessary to manage and maintain it to be in a good condition until the asset was disposed of or returned to its owner.
Mrs Avotri, who said the public was key when it came to asset recovery, noted that EOCO wants the public to know that giving timely information about asset of a person under investigations or prosecution, was critical.
Mr Manasseh Azure Awuni, an Investigative Journalist, also recounted that there were lots of Ghanaians with information and were prepared to share, however, majority of them had issues with trust.
He said if state institutions would open up and as well win the trust and confidence of the general public, people would willingly provide the needed information.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Dr Kojo Asante, Director of Policy Engagement and Advocacy at CDD-Ghana, said with the fight against corruption they realized the asset recovery aspect needed to be advocated to help retrieve monies even if people got prosecuted.
He said the team observed in some instances that judges pronounced the need to recover assets and that inspired them to make documentaries because often after trials people hardly read judgements.
Dr Asante, who is also the Project Coordinator of CW, told GNA that would serve as a deterrent, adding “so this is the reason for the video, we thought of doing things to popularize some of these issues and to serve as a lesson to people, that corruption does not pay”.
He said asset recovery was not the only challenge with regards to fighting corruption, but asset management, therefore a lot of work needed to be done in that area.
CW is a CDD-Ghana’s foremost anti-corruption campaign.
It seeks to promote integrity in public life by demanding and activating the responsiveness and accountability of all actors in the anti-corruption space to ensure corruption cases are investigated, suspects prosecuted and stolen funds recovered.
CW's is to make corruption risky and unattractive by closing opportunities which encourage corruption in Ghana, by sustaining citizen and media spotlight on corruption cases from exposure of corrupt cases and officials, to closure of the cases.
GNA
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