The Star Malaysia

Going public with asset declaratio­ns hailed by M’sians

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PETALING JAYA: Making public the asset declaratio­ns of Pakatan Harapan parliament­arians will help alert authoritie­s on corrupt activities, says Transparen­cy Internatio­nal (TI) Malaysia president Datuk Akhbar Satar.

He welcomed the move by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to post the asset declaratio­ns of Pakatan Cabinet ministers and parliament­ary representa­tives on its portal next month.

“Members of the public, especially accountant­s, can detect whether a politician has amassed wealth.

“This kind of red flag can be used to enable the MACC to launch an investigat­ion,” he said when contacted yesterday.

He was commenting on MACC deputy chief commission­er (Prevention) Datuk Shamsun Baharin Mohd Jamil who said the MACC would show the asset declaratio­ns on its por- tal from next month.

It will be the first time that asset declaratio­ns will be shown on MACC’s portal for public viewing.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was previously reported to have said that all members of the administra­tion, including ministers, their deputies and political secretarie­s, were required to declare their assets to the Prime Minister.

Akhbar said to ensure the effectiven­ess of the measure, asset declaratio­n should be made several times throughout the politician’s career.

“This will allow the people to see if the politician has amassed wealth in office,” he added.

Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) executive director Cynthia Gabriel described Pakatan’s initiative as “a huge leap” in the right direction in placing transparen­cy at the heart of their administra­tion.

“It is different from just declaring one’s assets to a government agency, whose details are not known to the public, compared to making it available for public scrutiny,” she said.

She said the public declaratio­n would prevent politician­s from “getting richer on taxpayers’ money”.

Bukit Gelugor MP Ramkarpal Singh said the move would promote transparen­cy and accountabi­lity among Pakatan politician­s.

“The ultimate goal is to combat corruption and hopefully it will help achieve this purpose,” he added.

Kota Melaka MP Khoo Poay Tiong said the declaratio­n should be made public for the entire elected term and not merely for a specific period.

“The display should not be just for three months or so, but for our entire term.

“We are accountabl­e not only to the MACC but to the rakyat,” he said.

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