An Opposition lawmaker has questioned Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s assertion that 97 percent of his ministers have declared their assets, noting he also said five of them have yet to do so.
Kluang MP Wong Shu Qi used Twitter to express her confusion shortly after the PM’s remarks to Parliament this morning.
“This is weird. 97% of 32 cabinet ministers declared, that should be 31 persons. Yet, PM claimed there are still FIVE ministers yet to declare. So mcm mana ya?” Wong wrote.
Earlier this morning, Muhyiddin gave the 97-percent figure in a parliamentary reply to Teo Nie Ching (PH-Kulai), during which he said five ministers have still to declare their assets.
“Up till today, 97 percent (of the Cabinet) have declared their assets. Only five are left that have not declared their assets. I’m not going to name names. However, I will pay them extra attention to ensure that the process is sped up,” said Muhyiddin.
He said that he will also pay special attention to his deputy ministers and Perikatan Nasional (PN) MPs.
He acknowledged that the members of previous Pakatan Harapan (PH) government had successfully declared their assets but stressed that the PN administration was still new.
He also corrected his previous remark from March when he said they would have one month to declare their assets, saying he misspoke and had meant three months.
Aside from the 32 ministers, the Perikatan Nasional administration also has 39 deputy ministers but they are not considered part of the Cabinet.
However, even including the deputy ministers would still mean that only 93 per cent have declared their assets if five have yet to do so.
PH introduced the asset declaration exercise when it came into power in 2018.
Besides ministers and their deputies, PH MPs and the ministers’ aides are also required to declare their assets to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
The declaration is then published on MACC’s website.
MACC has disabled the site since Perikatan Nasional took over on March 1.
Earlier on Monday, de facto law minister Takiyuddin Hassan said in a written reply that PN would continue the practice of making the asset declarations public on MACC’s website.
He said that as of July 6, 43 MPs have yet to submit their asset declarations.