So the asset declarations by our lawmakers have been a masquerade? Or to use the word of the prime minister, a "farce"? For all these years? Owning assets worth hundreds of millions of ringgit, yet declaring RM10 million or RM11 million only? If true, it must be the longest show in town.
Since July 2019, the Dewan Rakyat has made it compulsory for all members of parliament to declare their assets to the speaker, and for a copy to be lodged with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
One would have thought the purpose of extending such declarations was to probe those that were falsely made. No. MACC, it turns out, is just a "custodian".
At most, the graft-buster just uploads the information on its Asset Declaration Portal. To what end? Your guess is as good as ours. We hope it is not to turn the MACC into an archive of declarations.
Why just a "custodian" is a question on many discerning minds. The former deputy chief commissioner of the prevention branch of MACC, Datuk Seri Shamshun Baharin Mohd Jamil, answered it thus in the year the asset declarations were made mandatory: there is no law to compel the MPs to comply nor to punish for non-compliance. He was right, but up to a point.
For reasons best known to our lawmakers, they didn't turn the "mandatory" requirement into law, depriving MACC of the legal power to act. The farce that is the asset declaration can, however, be ended in three ways. It is a government, complaints and human story.
Start with the government. The government is aware the "political gimmick" can only be ended if there is a law to compel MPs to declare their assets. This, it must pass.
It can also tweak Section 36 of the MACC Act 2009 to give the graft-busters the power to probe improperly obtained assets. What we have now is a mere motion passed by the lawmakers. MACC would be hard put to do anything with it. Neither bark nor bite here.
What can help the graft-busters, though, even in the absence of a law empowering it to probe false declarations, are complaints — our second way of ending the declaration charade. In our reading of the law as it is, MACC would be empowered to act on the complaints lodged with it. It goes without saying that the complaints must have a basis.
Finally, law and institutions can only do so much. If integrity is what we are after, then we should not just stop at these two. We must go for the third way, clean politicians.
Laws, even drafted by the best legal draftsmen, would have loopholes to be exploited by crafty lawyers. Look at the fate of our anti-hopping law. Looks like it will meet its end before it achieves its purpose.
Frogs, it appears, will always find a way to hop. After all, it is in their nature to do so. Institutions, too, over time become compromised as concentration of political power overwhelms it.
The third way, the best way, is to make sure that only incorruptible individuals get to be lawmakers. For this to happen, it must start at the party level. If this occurs, there may not be a need for asset declarations at all.