A COALITION of seven good governance civil society groups have urged Putrajaya to pass a law making it compulsory for politicians to declare their assets.

The Governance Integrity Accountability Transparency coalition wants a federal legislative bill to be introduced to enforce the declaration in line with promises of greater transparency by Pakatan Harapan, which won Putrajaya after the May 9 polls.

The coalition said it was “dismayed” there was little information publicised by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

“After all, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has publicly affirmed many times that MPs need to submit their declarations – but as of today, it is quite appalling that 34 MPs and 10 cabinet members have yet to declare their assets despite being in power for almost half a year,” the group said in a statement today.

GIAT said the government must be accountable to the public and assure Malaysians that asset declaration is taken seriously, “lest Pakatan Harapan’s credibility in their reform and anti-corruption platform be further tarnished”.

The group said it would give a two-week deadline for lawmakers to declare their assets, failing which they would name those who failed to do so.

The group comprises the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4), Sinar Project, Transparency International Malaysia, Society for the Promotion of Human Rights, Friends of Kota Damansara, and MyPJ.

TI-M secretary-general Muhammad Mohan said he was disappointed that 10 ministers had failed to declare their income.

“It was in their manifesto,” he told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today. “The directive came from their boss (Dr Mahathir) and a deadline was given and then postponed twice.”

Present was C4 Centre executive director Cynthia Gabriel, C4 Centre legal research officer Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, and MyPJ chairman Jeffrey FK Phang.

“This is something that the public is watching. It is very important that they immediately declare,” Muhammad said.

The income declaration was original scheduled for October 1, then postponed to October 15, and then again to November 1. 

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) published the asset declaration of 47 Pakatan Harapan and Parti Warisan Sabah MPs, with Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng recording the highest monthly income at RM86,464.92.

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail was ranked second with an income of RM77,629.68 while Dr Mahathir Mohamad was third with an income of RM75,861.57.

The group said aside from the income declaration, little else was published on MACC’s portal. The website had said that it was experiencing technical issues which needed to be resolved before more public asset declarations could be made. 

MACC chief commissioner Shukri Abdull said the agency was awaiting the go-ahead from the cabinet or the home minister and that they were merely following government directives on the matter. 

“We do not accept the buck being passed from one agency to another,” said Gabriel. “There is no issue of privacy when you’re dealing with public funds. That is the whole exercise of transparency.

“When you deal and manage millions of ringgit in public funds, you have to show you did not use it for your own personal gain, which is the definition of corruption.”

She added that politicians should not be embarrassed of their wealth: “The issue of privacy doesn’t arise because they used to have a different life before they entered politics.

“If they were wealthy businessmen before, it’s fine. Just state it as it is so that people know that you are coming in rich.”

Phang said the issue of politicians’ safety in the face of declaring their assets also should not arise.

“We can see so many tycoons and we know that they are very rich. We know it from their shares. 

“You don’t hear tycoons saying, ‘I shouldn’t be made to declare my shares because I fear for my safety. We hope that none of the politicians would ever raise this excuse.” 

GIAT also jointly authored a pledge for a public asset declaration framework with the Malaysian Bar for best practices for asset declaration on the types of assets that need to be declared, who should declare them, and how often they should do so.

Those that should declare, GIAT said, are MPs, state exco members, members of state legislatures, and senior officials of public bodies. 

The group also supported a previous call by Shukri to amend the MACC Act to make it mandatory for MPs to declare their assets. 

“We listed the case of Musa Aman, who is being charged in court right now, for suspicious wealth and ill-gotten gains and for abusing his power as former chief minister of Sabah. We all know the example of 1MDB as well,” said Gabriel.

“It is really very essential that Malaysia creates checks and balances to make sure that politicians don’t misuse funds.” – November 5, 2018.