My assets and liabilities

Much has been said about politicians declaring their assets. The Selangor state government finally did so and declared all exco members’ income and assets acquired after we were sworn in as exco members.

A reporter asked me why did we do so now and not earlier. Yes, we did discuss this at an exco meeting earlier last year, but then left it at that. It was our MB who reminded us at a recent exco meeting that we all should declare our assets and income and post it online. After that our MB’s office rushed us to fill up the forms.

We decided to only declare assets acquired AFTER we were sworn in as exco members, because for most of our exco members, the assets that they purchased or own now were not obtained through their political involvements, but through their professional and business endeavours prior to their becoming exco members.

Frankly, if not for this exercise, I won’t really be aware how much my income is, because I do not open the pay slips from both Parliament and the State Assembly sent to me each month. I am only aware of my salary credit after I check my account at the end of month via internet banking. When I filled in the form, I was a bit surprised that my income is much higher than the figure that I usually see in my internet banking account each month, because I do not receive this amount monthly. This made me look into my monthly expenditure.

The The Selangor government website faced some technical problems, so most people could not view other exco members’ income and assets but they can only see mine and Elizabeth Wong’s last night.

In last night’s NTV7 English news, I was surprised to hear the newscaster announce Elizabeth’s and my monthly income only, but not the income or assets of other exco members.

In today’s Sinar Harian, I got a shock to read the headlines: “Gaji Teresa Kok Paling Lumayan: Memperoleh pendapatan berjumlah RM32,830.67 sebulan”. Oh, my God!! Why pick on me only??

Our Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid also wears two hats, he is the MP for Bandar Tun Razak and ADUN for Ijok, his income is definitely higher than mine, but the problem is, our state government website had some technical problems and his income could not be shown and this made me “over shadowed” him.

Yes, I do wish to get as much income as stated in the forms that you saw, but that’s definitely not the net amount that I receive. Only those who have been involved in politics know our expenditures. I have two service centres with a number of paid staff, one centre in Seputeh Parliamentary Constituency and the other one in Kinrara State seat.

The Seputeh Parliamentary service centre has three full-time staff and one part-timer, it costs me more than RM10,000 a month. I pay for my staffs’ salaries amounting to RM8,600 a month.

For the my Kinrara centre, I am slightly relieved because the state government subsidises one staff member and provides RM1,000 for the rental. I use the term “subsidise” because I have to top up both the office rental and the salary of that employee. My Kinrara service centre has three staff members and I need to look for funds to pay for the other two assistants too. This means, my Kinrara service centre’s expenditure also comes to about RM7,000 a month in addition to the state government subsidy. Besides, I also need to top up the salaries of my assistants in my Shah Alam exco office, because they are experienced staff and they demand higher pay. I always believe that we need to be fair to our staff, if I pay them peanuts, they will just stay for a short while and do a lousy job. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

On top of that, I need to make a monthly contribution to the party, the party tax for full-time wakil rakyat is 15% of our salary.

Frankly, I don’t feel comfortable posting just my income and assets online without posting my expenditures online too.

As a wakil rakyat, we always spend a lot. During festive seasons, many sick and poor people come to our office to ask for money. We often donate to the genuine cases. Besides, when we are invited to some functions, we are often asked for donations. I should say that I am a bit relieved in Selangor because I can use state government allocations for this purpose, it was much more difficult for me when I was just an opposition MP. I remember when I was first term MP, I once had only about RM1,800 cash in my bank account during Chinese New Year after deducting all expenses. I felt so down at that time but I could not tell others about my “poverty’ at that time.

Well, as we practise transparency in our administration and lifestyles, so we make our income and assets known to the world. I also need to declare my expenditures, so that we won’t be regarded as being very rich. In this economic downturn period, I forsee that more poor people will zoom in to my service centre, especially after I have declared my assets to the world now.

I am thankful to God and the voters for allowing me to wear two hats as both MP and exco member, but this will only last for the short term. Income like this is like a puff of wind, it can disappear any time. What I treasure most is not the slightly higher income that I get, but the position that enables me to assist more people in the state and bring changes to the state government.

* My asset declaration forms can be downloaded here http://teresakok.com/wp-content/file_ybteresa4.pdf