Asset declaration: Why should civil servants go first?

Former deputy international trade and industry minister Ong Kian Ming has questioned a PKR MP’s proposal to first introduce mandatory asset declaration for civil servants, before expanding it to include politicians.

“Why should civil servants take the lead in declaring their assets instead of elected politicians?

“Isn’t transparency something supported by the Madani government?” he asked on Instagram yesterday.

He was responding to a Free Malaysia Today interview with Subang MP Wong Chen that was published yesterday morning, where Wong reportedly mooted the idea as a “super low-hanging fruit” for improving transparency in the government.

He reportedly said this is something that can be done as a minimum even if PKR’s partners are not keen on declaring their own assets.

“Hopefully, when the politicians are ready for this, maybe they can do it too. PKR (candidates) are quite well-known for declaring their assets before the elections, but we don’t want to impose it on DAP and Umno.

“But I think we must do it at least for the civil service level. And that would be a big improvement,” he reportedly said when asked to comment on Bersih, which a given the government a “D” grade in terms of introducing reforms.

Public asset declarations were practised in 2018 and covered members of the Pakatan Harapan-led administration and its MPs.

Parties that were in opposition at the time resisted attempts to expand it to include all MPs.

A pared-down version of the MACC-run website was used in the subsequent administration led by Perikatan Nasional, which contained less information.

Work in progress

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Harapan had promised that all ministers, MPs, senior civil servants, chairpersons of government-linked companies, and well as all their spouses and close family members aged 18 and above should declare their assets, as was practised following the 2018 election.

Last year, however, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim described the previous asset declaration system as a farce that did not reflect an official’s true wealth, adding the MACC was fine-tuning the system.

To date, the MACC’s asset declaration portal still displays a notice since at least November 2022 stating that it is “temporarily closed”.

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