Oil ministers hold back on property disclosure

Even after 100 days since the formation of the KP Sharma Oli-led coalition government, the cabinet members are yet to reveal their ownership details.

While disclosing details of ministers’ holdings is not mandatory, the practice is an effort to hold public officials accountable and encourage transparency.

In Oli’s early terms as prime minister, members of the cabinet disclosed details of his property holdings.

Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office said they had received property declarations from ministers.

However, a PMO official said that this administration, like many previous ones, is hesitant to make public the details of the ownership of ministers.

“Shortly after the cabinet decided to reveal their ownership details, ministers are facing a backlash,” the official told the Post on condition of anonymity. “This could be why, despite receiving the details of the property, the Council of Ministers has not yet made it public.”

According to the Nepal Gazette published on July 4, 2018, the Prime Minister, Ministers and Ministers of State must submit their property details to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet. These details must be sent to the National Monitoring Center within 2 months. It is an old practice to publish these details.

Section 50 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002 also states that public office holders must submit their property declaration within 60 days of assuming public office and at the end of each fiscal year.

“Whoever joins a public position shall, within 60 days from the date of joining the public position, and whoever holds a public position on the date of commencement of this section, within the period of 60 days from the entry date of this Law, and after that, within 60 days from the end date of each fiscal year, submit the updated property declaration in your name or that of your family members, together with the sources or evidence, to the governing body,” says the Law.

However, subsection 50(4) of the same Act also provides that property details submitted may be confidential.

Because the constitution protects a person’s property, disclosing it is up to personal discretion. Article 28 of the Constitution mentions the right to privacy. “The privacy of any person, his residence, property, documents, data, correspondence and matters related to his character are inviolable, except by law,” the article says.

Former Chief Secretary Bimal Koirala recalls that in the past, ownership details shared by ministers were released after the decision of the Cabinet meeting.

They are legally required to submit property data to the Prime Minister’s Office, but these submitted data are not legally required to be made public. However, the government formed after the Popular Movement of 1990 established a tradition of making them public.

However, Koirala said this tradition was broken when the government was formed under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice Khilraj Regmi.

“It is the moral responsibility of the prime minister and ministers to be transparent in informing the public about their assets when they come in and out of power,” Koirala told the Post. “But ministers may have rejected this because questions are being raised about his assets.”

Koirala further said that the Prime Minister and ministers have recently failed to understand the gravity of disclosing the details of the property. “If this trend prevails, the country’s system of government will be weakened,” he said. “If you talk about good governance on paper but are not transparent while sitting in public office, it will affect governance itself.”

Krishna Gyawali, a former secretary to the government of Nepal, says that making ministers’ property details should be legally binding because people in power could hide their assets. Gyawali said ministers and public office holders should disclose their assets while in power and disclose them even when out of office.

“If the public knows his ownership when and after he is in power, only the public knows the differences,” Gyawali told the Post.

“When he is in power, he tends to add properties due to irregularities and to prevent this from happening, the property data of people in public positions must be made public. The file should be submitted to public scrutiny.”

Prithvi Subba Gurung, government spokesperson and minister for communication and information, said details would be released soon.

“We were supposed to send the details within two months of taking over, which we did,” Gurung told the Post. “It will be published soon.”