Repubblika: Ministers should be subject to higher scrutiny than MPs

Robert Abela's proposal to reform parliament's assets declaration system has been described as deceptive by NGO Repubblika.

The prime minister said on Sunday that he wanted the system revised so that all MPs are required to file the same asset declarations as cabinet members.   

Last year's ministerial declarations of assets have not yet been tabled in parliament. Speaker Anġlu Farrugia subsequently ruled that there was no legal requirement to table the declarations, though that had become the praxis isn recent years. He explained that MPs currently need to submit an assets declaration to his Office, while ministers were required to submit a more detailed account to the Cabinet Secretary. The declarations could be shown to those who asked to see them.

Repubblika President Vicki Ann Cremona in a letter to the prime minister accused the government of a lack of transparency and said that what the prime minister had proposed did not hold water.

Backbench MPs and ministers were different from each other, she explained. MPs were part-timers, allowed to do private work, and their affairs were therefore private.

In contrast, ministers were full-timers who were precluded from doing other private work. And they were in a position of authority with responsibility for public funds.

Repubblika, she wrote, would have no objection to the same level of transparency for MPs and ministers when and if the former were also full-timers. But until that happened they could not be viewed with the same level of transparency applied to ministers since the potential for corruption was far greater for the latter when compared to MPs who were not public officials. 

Cremona said the ministerial declaration of assets was an important tool for journalists, researchers and members of civil society to oversee the behaviour of those given political power.

"Whenever a government reduces transparency, it inevitably signals that it has something to hide," she warned.

She also pointed out that the government had so far refused to implement the recommendation of the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) and the OECD on how to improve transparency in public administration. Instead, matters were becoming more opaque.

The prime minister was therefore urged to retain the current systems while a public consultation was held on how the situation could be improved.

Abela was also asked to publish the latest ministerial declarations of assets without delay.

See the letter to the prime minister by clicking on the pdf below.