No ministry in Ghana has an asset register. When you don’t have an asset register, how do you take over the assets of the country? Any company that runs anywhere, one of the most important documents of that company is the asset register.

“The asset register will detail out the assets of the company and therefore, if you go to any ministry in the country, there should be an asset register,” he said in Accra on Tuesday at an Institute of Economic Affairs roundtable discussion on Ghana’s 2017 transition.

The Transition Act was an initiative of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Ghana Political Parties Programme. It was passed in 2013 and first used after the 2012 elections but an amendment to the law passed by the last Parliament was not assented to by former President John Dramani Mahama.

The roundtable was meant to make a detailed assessment of the 2017 transition, evaluating what worked well and what did not to identify the areas that needed fine-tuning of the law in order to improve its practical implementation.

While insisting that he was not putting the blame on any government, he said every ministry should have an asset register that had the inventory of everything in its name, including photocopiers. 

He said in the absence of such a document there was no basis of reference.

Mr Osarfo-Maafo said although the asset register was mandatory per the Financial Management Regulations, it was not being implemented and had been one of the key concerns raised by the Auditor-General’s Report annually.

“We need a law to enforce it, otherwise it becomes very difficult to take over assets of the country,” he said.

Linking Administrator General to procurement

Against a backdrop of the Administrator-General’s Office claiming it had little resources to work with, thereby slowing down its work, the senior minister said it was important to empower that office to become very active.