All holding office should declare assets

Civil society groups have lauded Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s move to have his ministers and their deputies declare their assets.

However, they urged Abdullah to extend this requirement to the ministers’ spouses and families as well as to all those who hold office, including local councils and the newly-formed opposition-led state governments.

Here are their views:

TI warmly welcomes this initiative by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to name a clean and performing cabinet. His request to declare their assets should include the administration and ministers to declare their liabilities too. Plus, not only the ministers but their wives as well.

It is significant that the PM is asking this to be made public as opposed to previous conduct of assets being disclosed to just him alone. This would enable the public to help the PM to monitor the conduct of his ministers.

This ruling should apply to all members of the government and all officials as well. What’s wrong with the public knowing what our top officials have? Now they declare it to the chief secretary but they don’t do it regularly.

I urge the government to enforce the instructions for the chief secretary to declare assets and liabilities. All figures can be placed on a website if the government is really serious in letting the public know their assets. If they think such a declaration may result in an intrusion of privacy, they can report to an independent commission made up of members with impeccable integrity themselves.

This requirement to declare assets should extend to all state governments especially Barisan Nasional-controlled ones and the non-BN controlled states can follow suit. Let that be the challenge to them.

PM’s initiative is laudable. It is something that TI has been dreaming of for a long time. Should all this be executed, then we’ll truly know that our dreams are coming true.

We urge all executive members from both federal and state governments, whether BN or non-BN, to declare their assets to the public. Even if there is any administrative problems, they can still make the information available for a fee. This has always been Gerak’s stand.

This should all start within the month after they have been sworn in. There is no compromise. They must do it. If they don’t do it within at least 100 days after being sworn in, then it would mean the government isn’t serious about it.

They must declare everything from assets to liabilities. Not just them but their spouses, in-laws and siblings because in most cases, these people act as a front for them.

It is a good idea. However, it should also include spouses and family members. They must declare their assets too. This should be done immediately, in fact it can be done now. There isn’t a need for guidelines and such because it is understood that they have been doing so all these while, but just not publicly.

Declaring assets should be sufficient but it should be a comprehensive one. They should also divest information about what they had before they were ministers. We need to know how some ministers can afford such lavish houses on the pay that they actually receive.

This is definitely encouraging as part of freedom of information. It is about time that the PM did something like this. This should have been done last time but better late than never. This is the first step towards creating an open government and accountability.

This would allow more scrutiny on the cabinet and the executive in terms of assets unlike what happened with the late former Port Klang assemblyperson Zakaria Mat Deros whose assets were never resolved. We don’t know how he accumulated so much wealth. It is not about how much one owns but making these individuals subject to scrutiny.

However, the declaration of assets should be extended to not just cabinet ministers and their deputies but anyone holding office. This includes those from the local councils, the newly formed state governments by the opposition. They must all be accountable in declaring their assets.