Penang exco to declare assets within a month

Penang exco to declare assets within a month

By Lisa J. Ariffin

December 11, 2011
Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 11 — Penang executive council members will declare their assets within a month in a move towards clean government, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said today.

The DAP secretary general (picture) said this was one of the integrity measures the state government had adopted “to cleanse Malaysia of corruption, cronyism and abuse of power”.

“The Penang state exco approved the public declaration of assets before we took office on March 8, 2008. We hope to publish this on the internet within a month,” Lim said in his speech at the Penang DAP conference this morning.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders have repeatedly accused the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) of corruption and abuse of power, pointing to Malaysia’s falling score in the annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

Transparency International’s index shows the country has fallen 13 places to 60th place since Datuk Seri Najib Razak took over as prime minister in 2009.

The opposition has also called for Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil to resign following allegations of abuse of power in the RM250 million National Feedlot Centre project awarded to the Wanita Umno chief’s family.

PKR has alleged that Shahrizat’s husband, Datuk Mohamed Salleh Ismail, who runs the national cattle-farming project, used a multi-million ringgit federal loan to fund personal expenses including two RM6.9 million luxury condominiums.

Lim also pointed out today that BN spent RM110 million on election posters in the 2004 general elections despite breaching the maximum limit of RM88.3 million as stipulated in electoral rules.

The Bagan MP said the Election Commission “must be punished for failure to act or even failure to press for action by the relevant authorities on election bribery.”

“So blatant was this election spending that the EC admitted that RM110 million was spent on election posters alone,” he said.

He also said the Penang state government has adopted a ban on political involvement in business and established an open tender system.

“How can politics mix with business as the former seeks to uphold public interest whereas the latter is to pursue private benefit and profit?” he asked, citing MCA as an example.