MPs who don't submit financial declarations to have salary cut in half

The interim parliamentary committee set up to revise and establish parliamentary regulations has made the decision to penalize the parliamentarians who failed to submit their, their spouses and their children’s financial declarations with a 50 percent reduction in their salaries.

Previous regulations required that parliamentarians submit only their own financial declarations. However, the regulations do not specify penalties for parliamentarians who fail to submit financial declarations.

The regulation committee has revised the regulations so that parliamentarians are now required to submit financial declarations of their spouses and children along with their own financial declarations.

The committee has also revised the deadline for submission from October 31 to August 31.

The committee has decided it will serve a 15-day notice to parliamentarians who fail to submit financial declarations by the deadline. If a parliamentarians fail to submit financial declarations within the 15-day notice period, he/she will be penalized with a 50 percent reduction in their salaries for a one-month period.

The cases of parliamentarians who fail to comply even after suffering the salary reduction are to be sent to relevant agencies for investigation.

These revisions by the committee needs to be approved by the Parliament through a general vote before they can be applied.

Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), during the parliamentary election, pledged to establish failure to submit financial declarations as a criminal offense.