Opening up government

(First published in theSun on 29 October 2014, here).

LAST week, IDEAS hosted a workshop to promote the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a tool currently being adopted by 64 countries around the world that signifies a government’s commitment to greater transparency and good governance, and to work in partnership with civil society to achieve these goals. An excellent idea – but Malaysia falls far short of reaching such standards.

As part of the workshop, I presented on the potential benefits a country like ours would reap were we to sign up to this initiative: first, that this would enhance the national and international credibility of the Malaysian government on various platforms. It would also build trust amongst civil society and the general public towards government, where there is presently a growing antagonism.

Such a platform would ensure an ongoing dialogue where all parties would be able to air their grouses, and finally would result in a systematic record of issues, where reports can be referred to in the future. Finally, an open environment with easy access to information would encourage foreign investors looking for transparency in doing business.

From the perspective of civil society, there might be a very real fear of being co-opted into government, but such a platform would also ensure non-governmental organisations have a systematic opportunity to dialogue on real issues and concerns they deal with. The OGP would be an all-encompassing instrument to take up. But what we learnt quickly is that even if we wanted to, Malaysia does not qualify to participate.

This is owing to the fact that Malaysia only passes two out of the four criteria, on fiscal transparency and citizen engagement. We fail dismally in the areas of both access to information and income and asset disclosures of elected and senior public officials and politicians. Countries that qualify to sign up to the OGP have some form of a freedom of information legislation and compel their government officials to declare their assets publicly.

As a result, Malaysia scores 10 out of the 12 points required. In fact, if we wanted to grab at a low-hanging fruit to push ourselves up the scale, this would be to make public income and asset declarations of public officials. The current practice is that public officials do declare their assets, but this is reported to an internal auditor and not made public. Politicians, on the other hand, are not obliged to declare anything at all, which is a major concern.

The most recent controversy surrounding the Ministry of Finance’s sovereign wealth fund 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) centres on the fact that RM1.5 billion worth of “commissions, fees and expenses” have been paid out to unidentified individuals when bonds were raised in 2012 and 2013. This comes on the back of other reports alleging that 1MDB is in fact laden with estimated debts of up to RM40 billion.

Could public asset declaration have helped matters at all? Probably not, but divulging important financial information means that public employees and politicians’ wealth can be monitored and called into question when necessary. Records can also be used to compare against their lifestyles, and ultimately such a requirement makes it easier for the anti-corruption commission to investigate corrupt officials and politicians, resulting in convictions and charges.

Calling for public declaration of assets is not new. Within the region itself, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam all make it mandatory for income and asset disclosure to be made public. Malaysia sits comfortably with China in making such disclosures non-public. This, despite the fact that we are signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), which requiries state parties to establish policies requiring officers “to reveal … to appropriate authorities … their outside activities, employment, investments, assets and substantial gifts or benefits”.

Similarly, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) both have guidelines on asset disclosure. The kinds of information public officials and politicians should disclose include all sources of income, assets, positions in profit or non-profit firms, debts and gifts.

In fact, the Pakatan Rakyat-led state governments of Selangor and Penang made great strides early on in their administration by being the first states to have their exco members publicly declare their assets. It is hoped that the new Selangor government lineup will do the same.

It should be acknowledged that asset disclosure is not the silver bullet that would solve corruption amongst elected and public officials. In fact, there are instances where the costs could outweigh the benefits, both in terms of administrative costs and the fact that professionals could be deterred from running for office for fear of their pre-existing wealth being unnecessarily exposed. Further, even if Malaysia were to practise such disclosure, would our leaders really be able to take action against officials? Or would they be constrained for other political reasons – past favours and family relations included?

Multiple initiatives exist, and it is easy to dismiss yet another as adding to bureaucratic red tape. But the beauty of the OGP lies in the fact that countries can determine for themselves their respective scope of work, although these must lie within a broad framework of promoting openness, accountability and responsiveness to citizens.

For Malaysia, public asset – and income – disclosure of public officials is an urgently needed reform, for both elected and appointed individuals. The next step is to tackle access to information. But most importantly, as all reforms go, political will is first needed, without which all of this is merely perfunctory.

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