PUTRAJAYA, May 14 ― All federal lawmakers must declare the worth of assets in their possession as well as those owned by their family members to the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC), the prime minister said today.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said there will be no exception to the rule, not for members of his Cabinet nor for the Opposition.
“All ministers must make sure that all members of their administration must declare their assets to the MACC.
“We are extending this to all MPs including those from the Opposition. If the Opposition wants to exercise their power and criticise the government, they must also declare their assets,” he said after receiving the proposal from the Governance, Integrity and Anti Corruption Centre (GIACC) today.
However, the proposal must go through Dewan Rakyat Speaker Datuk Mohamad Ariff Md Yusuf before it can be implemented.
GIACC had also submitted another four proposals to the Special Cabinet Committee on Anti-Corruption.
The other four are: imposing a limit on gift acceptance; implementing an anti-corruption plan at organisational level; holding ministerial level meetings on governance, integrity and anti-corruption and; increase the transparency for public procurement.
“We will create a gift acceptance policy. Now, we can no longer receive a lot of gifts. Back during my first tenure as prime minister, I had received 26 cars, which I returned. If you want to see the cars, you can go to Langkawi,” he joked.
The limit imposed on gifts for public officials will be limited to RM500 and it will only be for food items and flowers.
“They wanted to send me a ton of dodol but... that would mean they send me so much I would have to redistribute. I don't know if that's corruption or not,” he said, again in jest.
“But they did send me two big boxes of fruits and now I have to eat all the fruits but it's also Ramadan.”
Earlier, he had launched a new initiative to improve civil servant delivery service called MyPortfolio.
The initiative will also improve on the civil service's administration and putting better preventive measures against civil servants taking bribes.
Dr Mahathir explained that every public servant will have a clear workflow chart system to reduce the risk of abuses of power and corruption.
He said the initiative is also to reduce public complaints against late delivery and increase the integrity of public servants in discharging their duties.
