MPs who haven’t disclosed offshore assets should be unseated – CMEV

Text and picture by PRIYAN DE SILVA

The National Coordinator of the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) Manjula Gajanayaka says new laws must be enacted to unseat the Members of Parliament who have not declared their offshore assets or made false declarations.

Referring to the recent exposures made in the Pandora Papers and the earlier Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, Gajanayaka said that it was evident that most decision-makers, as well as big time business persons stashed their wealth using untraceable offshore holding companies for many reasons such as tax evasion, inability to disclose source of income, etc.

“Politicians and political parties spend millions and billions of rupees to win elections with the hope of gaining very much more than what they spent on their campaigns,” Gajanayaka added that at present nominees for parliamentary elections had to disclose their wealth as required by the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Act of 1975 and an MP who did not comply was fined a paltry one thousand rupees.

“Heavy fines and unseating those found guilty will be a deterrent to crooks seeking public office” the election monitor said.