Ghana’s Parliament is considering introducing legislation that will allow for the lifestyles of individuals suspected of accumulating unexplained wealth to be audited.
Speaking in the House from the dais, Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin applauded the intervention as a means to check politically exposed persons and public officials whose wealth appeared to be disproportionate to their earnings.
He said Parliament will do its part to pushback against the opulence with which some officials carried themselves.
“I am, to this end, receiving a lot of input to process legislation on lifestyle audits,” Mr. Bagbin said, adding that he was “happy to hear OSP [Office of Special Prosecutor] also included it in their statement”.
“We will legislate and stop this impunity of people flaunting ill-gotten wealth in the face of poor Ghanaians.”
At the National Anti-Corruption last week Friday, the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng in his remarks, called for legal reforms to the approach of countering the age old issue of unexplained wealth in public life.
He proposed that individuals who could not explain how they accumulated their wealth be made to forfeit it altogether, describing it as “prevention is better than cure”.
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Mr. Agyebeng held the view that such an intervention would avert “slow, expensive and often unproductive” prosecutions by the state against culpable persons.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/Mitchell Asare Amoamah
