Editorial
Submission of wealth statements
The commitment should be implemented this time
THE finance minister has once again spoken about making public statement of wealth of the ministers and members of parliament. This time he has fixed a time for it; we are told that the statement would be released by June this year. We are glad that MPs belonging to other parties will also come under the purview. It is about time too. Here we cannot but take note of the statement made by the recently appointed Chief Justice in his very first day in office suggesting that the judges of the apex court should also submit their wealth statements for the sake of transparency and accountability.
Nothing concrete has materialised under the grand alliance government by way of submission of wealth statements even after a year of its being in office. We understand that the format on which the incumbent will have to declare their assets is on the PM's desk awaiting her approval, so that by June at the latest, the wealth statements will have been submitted.
It may not be out of place to recall that one of the electoral pledges of the AL in 2008 was to make public wealth statements of the prime minister, members of parliament, ministers and their dependents, every year. This has not been done, and somehow the issue has been hedged for one reason or the other. And the people got an apology of an explanation from the finance minister, which was not quite in character with his persistent stance on the matter.
It may also be relevant to remind that during the previous tenure of office of the AL in 1996, Sheikh Hasina as the PM had made a similar pledge, although that was not in the party's election manifesto at that time. Regrettably, nothing of the kind happened, and all we got then also was an explanation that although the statements were in hand of the PM these could not be made public, perhaps because of some exigencies of the time.
We thus have a history of commitments made and of commitments not kept insofar as this issue is concerned. We hope that the effort will not be merely cursory or perfunctory this time around, and that the pledge will be translated into substantive action and the public made aware of it. What better means of accountability to the electorate can there be of their representatives to generate public confidence in them than their disclosure of assets before the public on a year-to-year basis and the government keeping tab on these.
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