Welcoming the “full disclosure” clause in the proposed Political Donation Act, the Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) argued today that this can easily be undermined by the country’s existing secrecy laws.
"The C4 Centre welcomes this move (full-disclosure clause), as political financing remains a highly controversial issue within our political domain, with certain parties receiving colossal sums of money without public knowledge or explanation.
"The monetisation of politics has shown its ugliest face in recent times, where frequent association with cronyism, preferential treatment and outright corruption have become commonplace in the nation’s political landscape.
"However, with that said, C4 remains sceptical of the worth of the full-diclosure component, without reforms to incapacitate secrecy laws," C4 executive director Cynthia Gabriel and its freedom of information project officer Simitha Singam said in a statement today.
Cynthia and Simitha pointed out that existing laws, such as the Official Secrets Act (OSA) 1972 and others like it, will aid the government in keeping its secrecy.
As such, the full disclosure clause can easily be undermined and disregarded to protect the interests of certain parties.
For example, Cynthia and Simitha said, this can be done if a financial disclosure was declared as an official secret.
'Secrecy laws widely used today'
"With secrecy laws being widely used till today, even an abundance of laws promoting freedom of information to enhance accountability will not suffice to curb the underlying problem, which is corruption," they said.
Political donations should include a limit, since bottomless electoral accounts allow for elections to be bought with extravagant offers, C4 argued, adding that this would also put smaller political parties with lesser funds at a disadvantage.
"The limit on political donations will maintain a level playing field for all parties," Cynthia and Simitha said.
In another statement, Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) president Akhbar Satar (photo) said he supports restrictions on political donations from government-linked companies (GLCs).
"A majority of chairpersons and directors (of GLCs) are politicians (with) political inclinations and vested interests.
"GLCs belong to the government, which governs the country, and not to any political party. GLCs should be profit oriented and benefit the rakyat," Akhbar said.
As a member of the National Consultative Committee on Political Financing, he also said that he is happy with the progress being done by the committee so far.
"The committee's draft will be out by August this year. It is on track to meet its August 2016 deadline," Akhbar said.
Yesterday, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Paul Low said the government is in favour of enforcing full disclosure on all funds that political parties receive.
A full disclosure clause will be a key feature in the proposed Political Donation Act that is currently being drafted, Low said.
Other proposed provisions under the new law, said Low, the minister in charge of integrity, would include a 'negative list' of prohibited sources of funds, including funds from outside the country.
The proposed law is targeted at enforcing political financing reforms in the country by the time the 14th general election is called, he added.- Mkini
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