"The notion of asset disclosure in a country will make it difficult for corrupt officials to hide their criminal proceeds," said the Manager of Financial Market Integrity of the World Bank, Jean Pesme.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The World Bank stated that only 43 percent of the countries in the world allow the public to view the list of assets owned by state officials.

"The notion of asset disclosure in a country will make it difficult for corrupt officials to hide their criminal proceeds," said the Manager of Financial Market Integrity of the World Bank, Jean Pesme, in a press release on Tuesday.

According to him, civil society organizations and anti-corruption agencies should support the G20, by encouraging the use of financial asset disclosure system to identify corrupt state officials.

"It is an effective tool to bring corrupt officials to justice," he said.

Based on the data of 176 countries from the "Financial Disclosure Law Library" of the World Bank, not every state official is required to declare his/her wealth.

The World Bank data shows that the disclosure of the state officials` assets has been applied to the cabinet ministers in 93 percent of the countries in the world and to board members and prosecutors in 91 percent and 62 percent of the countries in the world, respectively.

Currently, only 43 percent of all the countries in the world can view the assets of the state officials.

In addition, the multilateral financial institution also found that only 36 percent of the countries in the world systematically check the discrepancies and inconsistencies in the financial data.

Earlier, the Vice Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Zulkarnaen, said that only 1,800 people out of 2,400 state officials have reported their assets.

"600 other state officials have not reported their wealth to the KPK," he said, on the corruption prevention seminar in Medan, North Sumatra province, on Tuesday (October 23).

"It means that only 70 percent of the state officials have reported their assets to the Commission," he added.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2012