This chart appeared on the Economist website today showing the amount of information lawmakers have to provide about their personal finances and business interests in the G20 countries. American lawmakers have to reveal the most and the Chinese the least.
Indonesian legislators have to reveal more than the Australians, Italians and the French, if you look at the chart. But the Japanese have to reveal the most among the Asians.
The small print at the bottom says the chart is based on Disclosure by Politicians, a study by researchers at Dartmouth College, Harvard and EDHEC Business School in France.
Lawmakers are required to disclose such information in 109 of the 175 countries surveyed. More than half the countries passed such laws in the 1990s.
The authors say:
“Five countries have no (such) legal requirement but use voluntary disclosure mechanisms established either by parliamentary rules (Denmark, Finland, and Norway), internal party regulations (Singapore), or imitation of disclosure by cabinet members (Zambia).”
However, while the information is available to the public in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Zambia, in Singapore it is available only to “congress”, say the authors. By “congress” they mean parliament.
Singapore is by no means an exception.
Although legislators are required to disclose financial information in 109 countries, the information is available to the public only in 63 countries.
In the other 46 countries, “disclosure is made solely to specific government agencies, such as the Speaker of Parliament or an internal Comptroller, but is inaccessible to the public”, says the report. It adds:
The list of countries with no legally required disclosure is dominated by 27 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, but also includes 12 from the Middle East and North Africa, and another 11 from East Asia Pacific.
Disclosure is more extensive in richer and more democratic countries.
The authors conclude:
If a country, especially a democracy, wishes to pass disclosure laws with the aim of reducing corruption, the most effective laws are those that make disclosure public…
The Economist adds:
France stands out as the only OECD country without a law mandating public disclosure by politicians. Nor are Italian MPs asked to make much information public. On the other hand, Argentina's laws require detailed information to be made public, but researchers found that the bodies charged with enforcing the rules lacked teeth.
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