President John Dramani Mahama has given his appointees up to March 31, 2025, to declare their assets or face severe sanctions, including the possibility of being removed from office.

Article 286 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana mandates public officeholders to complete and submit Assets Declaration forms to the Auditor-General’s office upon resumption of office.

But who are the public officeholders, including the appointees of the president, who are mandated to declare their assets?

The Public Office Holders (Declaration of Asset and Disqualification) Act, 1998, Act 550, lists the public officers who are to declare their assets, including:

a) President of the Republic;

b) Vice-President of the Republic;

c) Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, and a member of Parliament;

d) Minister of State or Deputy Minister;

e) Chief Justice, Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, Chairman of a Regional Tribunal, the Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice and his deputies, and all judicial officers;

f) Ambassador or High Commissioner;

g) Secretary to the Cabinet;

h) Head of a Ministry or government department or equivalent office in the Civil Service;

i) Chairman, managing director, general manager, and departmental head of a public corporation or company in which the State has a controlling interest; and

j) The Governor of the Bank of Ghana and his deputies;

k) Chairman of the Electoral Commission and his deputies;

l) Chairman of the National Commission for Civic Education and his deputies;

m) Head of Chancery of the Ghana Embassy or Ghana High Commission;

n) Heads of Departments of the Bank of Ghana;

o) Officers in the Armed Forces seconded to civilian establishments and institutions;

p) Members of the Tender Boards of the Central, Regional, and District Assemblies;

q) Officials of the Vehicle Examination and Licensing Division (VELD) not below the rank of Vehicle Examiner;

r) Presidential staffers and aides;

s) Officers of the rank of Assistant Inspector of Taxes and above in the Ghana Revenue Authority or its equivalent;

t) Officers of the Police Service;

u) Officers of the Prison Service;

v) District Chief Executive;

w) Presiding member and secretary of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies;

x) Chairman of the Public Services Commission and his deputies.

Aside from appointees of the president, other public officeholders are required to file their tax returns, including personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces.

Below are the known political public officeholders who are expected to declare their assets:

a) Head, Office of the Civil Service;

b) Persons who are:

i) Heads of;

ii) Accountants in;

iii) Internal Auditors in;

iv) Procurement Officers in; and

v) Planning and Budget Officers in finance and procurement departments of government ministries, departments, and agencies, District, Municipal, and Metropolitan Assemblies;

c) An officer in any other public office or public institution other than the Armed Forces, whose salary is equivalent to or above the salary of a Director in the Civil Service.

BAI/EK

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Former Directors-General of the National Service Authority (NSA), Osei Assibey Antwi and Mustapha Ussif, have responded to allegations made by the Fourth Estate in a recent media publication.

The publication accused the former NSA officers of various irregularities related to enrolment, verification, and payment processes within the Authority.

In a press release sighted by Citi News on Tuesday, February 18, the former officers expressed their concerns about the publication, describing it as “laden with a misapprehension of the enrolment, verification, and payment processes of the National Service Authority, as well as selective omission of information, calculated to achieve contrived conclusions of imputing wrongdoing to former officers.”

The publication claimed a significant discrepancy between the figures submitted to Parliament for budgetary purposes and those available to the public. The former officers clarified that the Fourth Estate relied solely on figures from the general posting done in September, omitting two cohorts of nursing trainees and one cohort of teacher trainees.

The NSA, in partnership with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Teachers Council, runs additional enrolment cycles for nurses and teachers, respectively. The former DGs argued that the shortfalls in figures were accounted for by these additional cycles.

The Fourth Estate also alleged that the NSA payroll was padded with “ghosts” due to discrepancies between the budgeted personnel and verified postings.

The former officers explained that the payroll is only activated after stringent verification processes, and only personnel who pass verification are paid through the GhiPPS System, a Bank of Ghana subsidiary.

The publication also claimed the NSA system was full of overaged individuals, foreign pictures, and wrong IDs. The former DGs in their statement countered this by explaining that initial data often contains errors, which are addressed during regional verification processes. Personnel with inconsistent information are categorized as banned or pending verification and do not draw from the payroll.

The former officers expressed shock that the Fourth Estate relied on entry data without verifying the actual number of personnel paid per year through GhiPPS. They argued that this reliance betrayed a malicious intent to publish a sensational story rather than diligently establish facts.

Throughout their tenure, Assibey and Ussif stated that they were committed to implementing robust enrolment and verification mechanisms to reduce fraudulent attempts. They urged journalists to be thorough in their work to avoid publishing misleading stories that malign individuals without basis.

The former officers welcomed President Mahama’s directive for an investigation, expressing confidence that the investigation would reveal the true state of affairs and counter the allegations made by the Fourth Estate.