3 ministers among 39 with public asset declarations

Amanah's Mat Sabu, Salahuddin and Dr Dzulkefly among Pakatan Harapan and PSM members who have made public declarations.

Mat Sabu, Salahuddin Ayub and Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad have made public asset declarations.

PETALING JAYA: Cabinet ministers and senior officials have been told to declare their assets, but three members of the Cabinet, all from Amanah, have already made known their net worth in declarations made public in March.

The three ministers are defence minister Mohamad Sabu, who is the president of Parti Amanah Negara; agriculture minister Salahuddin Ayub, who is the deputy president; and health minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, who is Amanah’s strategy director.

The three were among 35 members of Parliament, state assembly members and political leaders who made asset declarations by way of sworn statements attested to by a commissioner of oaths, which were submitted to the Invoke Malaysia organisation.

All three ministers have a declared net worth ranging from RM67400,000 to RM2 million, which is mostly made up of their family homes and inherited land.

Mohamad has a declared net worth of RM688,000 but the amount does not include savings and investments of RM325,600. If these were included, he would have a net worth of just over a million ringgit. His main assets are two houses owned by his wife, their family home, and a plot of kampung land.

He does not have a car in his name. However, a photograph of him next to his wife’s Viva were spread widely on social media when the Defence Ministry official car went to fetch him on his first day of work.

Salahuddin has a net worth of about RM740,000, the bulk of it in two houses in Pontian and Gombak. He has two cars, a second-hand Honda, and a used Rover Freelander, which was a gift from his father-in-law.

Dzulkefly has a net worth of almost RM2 million, most of it in his family home for which he has a loan of RM400,000; two plots of inherited land; two used cars, and a RM10,000 watch, a birthday gift.

Their declarations were made as part of the Aku Janji campaign conducted since September last year.

Others who have publicly declared their assets are members of Parti Sosialis Malaysia, who were the first to make public declarations. The assets owned by the party’s 16 election candidates were made public in April and showed amounts ranging from RM3,000 to RM3 million.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said all Cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and senior government officials would be required to submit asset declarations to him, which would be passed on to the newly set up national integrity centre.

However, he did not make it clear if these declarations would be made public.

The Invoke public declarations are available at: https://invokemalaysia.org/en/asset-declaration-akujanji/

Meanwhile, Bernama reported that the mechanism by which asset declarations are to be made by members of the government administration was still being discussed and a final decision would be made at the coming meeting of the Cabinet anti-corruption committee.

It quoted the director-general of the national integrity and anti-corruption centre, Abu Kassim Mohamed, as saying that aspects of asset declaration by members of the administration were among the matters to be discussed in detail in the meeting which would be held before Parliament session starts.

He said in a statement that Mahathir had expressed his commitment as well as that of the government at a committee meeting on Friday to discuss matters relating to asset declaration and accepting gifts.

Abu Kassim said the integrity centre would hold discussions from those involved, and welcomed reactions and feedback from political parties and community organisations. -FMT