There is significant evidence to show that requiring public officials to reveal their interests and assets leads to lower levels of corruption. Corruption has been known to be lower in countries with declaration rules that allowed the anti-corruption authority to prosecute the offending official, countries that checked the content of officials' asset statements and countries that made declarations public
Corruption – abuse of public position for personal benefit – emboldens government officials to plunder public assets, stagnating institutions, suppressing economic growth and preventing poor people's access to basic human services. Although several anti-corruption programmes have been adopted by various countries, corruption continues to be a stark concern for them. Moreover, the growing public-private collaboration (namely, public-private partnerships, sponsorships, outsourcing, self-regulation) has increased the risks of corruption and conflicts of interest, resulting in difficulty in monitoring and imposing ethical behaviour in public service.
Therefore, financial disclosure in the public sector is becoming an effective tool for both preventing and detecting corruption.
More than 150 countries have passed legislation mandating top officials to file income and asset statements, often as part of the broader anti-corruption effort.
A financial disclosure system is a transparency tool that encourages public officials to be more accountable.
It also helps to avoid conflicts of interest in policy and management choices, strives to strengthen public confidence in the integrity of the government, and constructs an environment of integrity in public service. The detection, investigation and conviction of public officials who violate the public trust can all be supported by disclosures.
There is significant evidence to show that requiring public officials to reveal their interests and assets leads to lower levels of corruption.
Corruption has been known to be lower in countries with declaration rules that allowed the anti-corruption authority to prosecute the offending official, countries that checked the content of officials' asset statements and countries that made declarations public. Furthermore, the combination of content verification and public access to disclosures was found to have an even stronger association with reduced corruption.
There is also a substantial positive link between public disclosure and government quality – which includes lower levels of perceived corruption.
However, this relationship exists only when disclosure statements are made public and when the scope of the disclosures is broad, that is, includes assets, gifts and activity statements.
Nepal has a long history of anti-corruption activities.
King Prithvi Narayan Shah, during his reign (1743–1775), took the most noteworthy initiative by declaring that anyone who takes or gives a bribe is an enemy of the land. The Civil Code, adopted by the Nepali government in 1854, had also included a set of anti-corruption laws.
However, these measures did not require public officials to declare their income and assets.
Provisions relating to property disclosure came into effect after the second amendment of the CIAA Act 1991 and were also inserted in the Corruption Prevention Act 2002. These two acts were a milestone in anti-corruption initiatives in Nepal. According to these acts, all government officials must report their income and assets, including the prime minister, ministers, members of parliament and civil staff.
The assets and liabilities of their spouses and children must also be disclosed.
Similarly, Article 29 of the Judicial Council Act 2016 requires members and judges to submit property details. Similarly, civil servants are obliged to declare their assets upon joining the civil service annually.
However, the asset declarations are kept a secret and are inaccessible to the general public.
Regarding institutional arrangements, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) is responsible for ensuring that members of the government and civil servants submit their asset declarations. Also, the National Vigilance Centre (NVC), the government body under the direct supervision and control of the prime minister, is responsible for monitoring the accuracy of the information provided by the head of state, ministers, parliamentarians and civil servants in general. The law, however, does not specify the criteria to be used by the body to verify the content of the declarations.
The NVC has not been very effective. The law's implementation has been weak with public officials and politicians abusing legal cavities. Besides, the law is frequently breached when authorities purportedly transfer property to the names of other relatives.
The NVC found 15,000 officials not submitting their property details last fiscal year. These findings should alert the government to strictly implement the prevalent provisions on property declaration to create transparency, accountability and integrity in the public sector. To make them more effective, first, the assets declared by public officials should be made accessible to the wider public, omitting the current provision of keeping such declarations private.
Second, since more disclosure can be found in countries that are wealthier, more democratic, and have a free press, the government should focus on boosting internal production and economic growth, generating more employment opportunities, strengthening democracy and the state institutions, reforming the public administration by promoting integrity and morality, and ensuring a free press.
Third, unification, solidarity and strengthening of civil society against corruption are a must. People should force all government offices under the federal, provincial and local levels to disclose details of their officials' assets by creating the Public Official Financial Disclosure Management Information System (FDMIS). Finally, the government should strengthen the CIAA, NVC and other related vigilance agencies with sufficient budget, trained human resources, new technology for detection and investigation of files and full rights to work against corruption.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 14, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
