KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 — Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Datuk Seri Abu Kassim Mohamed today intends to push the Najib administration members to declare their assets publicly.
The Cabinet members now declare their assets to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak annually but it is not made public.
“Declaration of assets is very, very important,” Abu Kassim (picture) said at the 15th Malaysian Law Conference at the KL Convention Centre here.
The nation’s top graft fighter was responding to a suggestion from former Bar Council president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan that the assets of politicians — particularly those in the Cabinet — and the judiciary be made publicly available for the sake of transparency.
“I agree with you... Everybody — for example, the minister or the judiciary — has to declare,” he told Ambiga.
Following the thumping Barisan Nasional (BN) took in the March 2008 general election, then-Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had directed Cabinet members to declare their assets in a bid to appease a public that was increasingly sceptical of BN’s capacity for reform.
Ministers, as well as deputy ministers, were required to fill in asset declaration forms with the MACC’s predecessor, the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), with the intention of making the information available online for public scrutiny.
However, Abdullah backed down from this plan after facing stiff opposition from ministers, who felt that it would be an invasion of privacy for the public to know their financial worth.
Abu Kassim earlier assured Ambiga that he was willing to investigate cases involving Cabinet members impartially without any regard to their political affiliation.
“I can assure you, if there is a case... against any Cabinet member and we didn’t investigate, I’m willing to go down,” he declared, by way of assurance.
He added that he was, in fact, already investigating Cabinet members for alleged corrupt practices but stopped short of elaborating.
MACC has come under sustained fire after its January 2008 start for what detractors claim is a poor record of prosecution and ineffective fight against corruption.
In particular, the perceived foot-dragging in getting to the bottom of Teoh Beng Hock’s suspicious death, one year after his death, continues to haunt the national anti-graft body.
The 30-year-old political secretary to Selangor state councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was found dead on July 16 last year on a fifth-floor landing at Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam, nine floors below the Selangor MACC’s then headquarters.
He had been interrogated overnight by anti-graft officers probing claims his boss was misusing state funds.
On the anniversary of Teoh’s death, Abu Kassim had pledged not to “cover up” the actions of anyone who may have been involved in causing the DAP political aide’s death.
However, the MACC’s condolence statement to Teoh’s family drew heavy criticism because it was only available in Chinese.
Teoh’s younger sister, Lee Lan, had also slammed Abu Kassim for his “insincere” effort.
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