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Assets bill amended to ensure cleaner politics

The legislature yesterday passed an amendment to the Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Law (公職人員財產申報法) aimed at establishing clean politics by tightening up regulations on officials' assets disclosure and expanding the scope of the bill's coverage.

An article which requires high-level officials and elected local government heads to place their assets and those owned by their spouses and their children in trust within three months after they assume office was added into the law.

Officials covered by the article include the president, vice president, the leaders of the five divisions of the government and their deputies, the heads and their deputies of state-owned enterprises and the branches of these enterprises, the mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung cities, as well as the commissioners of city and county governments.

For lawmakers, city councilors and county councilors will be asked to report variations in their assets and those owned by their spouses and their children every year.

Meanwhile, according to the amendment, officials would be fined as much as NT$3 million (US$91,200) if they are found to possess assets which are two times higher than the combined amount of their salaries and those of their spouse and children and are unable to explain the source.

Owing to the expansion of the law's coverage, officials covered by the law will increase from 8,000 to about 15,000.

Hsieh Yu-nan (謝育男), director of the Control Yuan's Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Department, in charge of reporting on officials' assets, said that the Control Yuan will need to add more staff to handle the increased workload.
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