PN MPs reluctant to declare assets? That’s strange

Takiyuddin says asset declaration in the past was limited to MPs holding positions in the govt administration (pic: MEDIA MULIA)

We have a precedent. Such an MOU was signed when Ismail Sabri was PM and Anwar was the Opposition leader

FLIPPING a printout of the draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) on allocations for Opposition MPs last week, Perikatan Nasional (PN) chief whip Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan raised a few potential issues that will be discussed at a meeting planned for Sept 9.

He described some of the conditions in the MOU as “pelik” (strange). Not his own words, actually. If you go back to the press conference on Sept 2, you could hear someone, presumably seated near him, whispering the word when Takiyuddin was trying to describe the draft memorandum in his hand.

Well, nothing strange about it. We have a precedent. Such an MOU was signed when Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob was the prime minister (PM) and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was the Opposition leader.

Takiyuddin from PAS served as the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources from August 2021 to November 2022 in that Cabinet. Well, politicians being politicians, I suppose we can expect such statements.

“Nothing wrong with politics when you’re a politician,” Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, said in her trailblazing run for 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. There’s a movie about her.

But what is strange is for the PAS secretary general to make a meal out of the clause requiring the MPs from PN — there are 68 of them now — to declare their assets.

It is troubling that, out of all the seven conditions in the MOU, Takiyuddin took issue with such a clause, saying that asset declaration in the past was limited to MPs holding positions in the government administration — like the PM, deputy PM (DPM), ministers and deputy ministers.

Why fear declaring assets? MPs are lawmakers. Some of them have held ministerial positions at the federal or the state level. Surely, they also take charge of funding for their party, at some level or another.

“We don’t understand why they want MPs who are not part of the administration to declare their assets,” he said.

Of all the points, you would have thought that this is not the one they want to quibble about, if transparency and governance is part and parcel of their DNA. This begs the question if this lot of lawmakers have something to hide.

They can and should discuss the clauses within the MOU demanding their support in return for money to be used to serve their constituents. They are supposed to sit down and thrash it out with DPM Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof. That’s part and parcel of politics.

And talking about asset declaration, it looks like the Unity Government is also not up to speed on this, dragging its feet to get this done.

Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) website has a link for the public to check the status of MPs’ declaration. It was launched in November 2018 under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration.

It says: “The Asset Declaration Portal is a platform for Members of

Administration and MPs to openly display their asset declaration to the public in order to demonstrate the government’s transparency and openness. Among the information displayed is the total monthly income and total assets owned by the Members of Administration and MPs. This information is easily accessible by the public via the online portal.”

As of last Friday, the link is displaying “Penutupan Sementara” (temporary closure).

On March 6, M Kulasegaran, the deputy minister taking charge of law and institutional reform, told Parliament that a new format on asset declaration for MPs and administrative members had been finalised and will soon be tabled to the Cabinet for further consideration. The new format was supposed to be an improvement over the previous asset declaration system introduced in 2018.

The proposal for the new format was tabled and agreed upon by the Special Cabinet Committee on National Governance chaired by PM Anwar on Jan 8, according to a Bernama report.

“In comparison to 2018, where we only disclosed the properties we owned and their respective values, the new format is more precise and transparent. Now, every asset must be declared comprehensively, including its original price and date of acquisition.

“In addition, we also need to determine the current value of the asset and compare it with the original price,” Kulasegaran told Parliament.

Well, at this juncture, MACC portal is still blank on asset declaration. The MPs should be more forthcoming with asset declaration, not just their own, but also of their spouses, children and trustees.

Takiyuddin and his company can do better. They should avoid the temptation to do the bare minimum for transparency and openness. Instead, be the torchbearers of good practice. Take the moral high ground and set a better example.