ALMOST 300 civil servants have not submitted a list of their personal assets, despite a relevant law passed last year requiring them to do so.
The new law was supposed to sort matters once and for all, but soon degenerated into a farce when the majority of those affected failed to meet a February 28 deadline for submitting their assets.
Since then, most have complied, but around 300 are yet to play ball, and the Capital Statement Council – the body charged with collecting the forms – plans to review the situation in mid-January. The council will be looking at this on a case-by-case basis, deciding which delays were warranted and which not.
Chairman of the House Legal Affairs Committee Ionas Nicolaou told the Mail yesterday that the majority of defiant officials were chairmen or members of the board of directors on semi-government organisations (SGOs)
“I’ve heard that many people in these positions protest their salaries are too low for them to be subject to scrutiny.”
Many of them belonged to the “lesser” SGOs, such as non-profit organisations.
“But the word on the street is that some highly-paid officials are also holding out, and that’s cause for concern,” Nicolaou added.
However Nicolaou dismissed the argument that these individuals were unaware of their duty to submit their assets.
“I don’t buy it. This information was published for all to see.”
Maverick officials and civil servants face stiff penalties for not observing the new law: up to a £3,000 one-time fine for non-compliance (where this is unjustified), plus a £50 penalty per every extra day of delay.
Nicolaou conceded that perhaps the law had to be fine-tuned to exempt certain categories of civil servants.
“Some are right not to want to do this, others are not. So we’ll have to look at this again.”
It was the latest twist in the long-running story of cracking down on unmerited enrichment, dating back to the late 1990s.
In 1999 a similar law was eventually rejected by the Supreme Court on the grounds it was unconstitutional. And the present law was also initially botched in the summer of 2004, when deputies failed to include a clause making it retroactive. Last December parliament finally got around to plugging this glaring loophole.
Those affected include the government spokesman; Central Bank governor; the president and members of the Civil Service Commission; senior administrative and executive officers of SGOs; mayors, mukhtars and municipal councillors; the National Guard chief and deputy chief; the chief and deputy chief of the police force; and a number of regulators, such as the chairman of the Competition Protection Committee.
A separate yet virtually identical law applies to the President, the House Speaker, ministers and deputies.
Asked whether deputies and ministers have done what’s required by law, Nicolaou remarked:
“Yes, they’ve been good.”
Critics say the law lacks teeth, as the personal assets can never be published, ostensibly to protect politicians and people in government from malicious attacks by adversaries.
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