According to a recent news release by Associated Press, Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has reported $16.1 million in earned income over the past 16 months. Most of it was in speaking fees as shown in financial documents filed by the former mayor of New York. Giuliani's report provides a detailed picture of his vast holdings and income since his term as mayor ended more than five years ago.

The same report mentioned that Democratic hopeful John Edwards revealed an earned income of $1.25 million, the biggest single source, of which was a hedge fund that employed him part time.

The US Federal Election Commission had set a deadline for filing the income declarations, although several candidates received 45-day extensions, including Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain.

As a consequence, American voters will have access to detailed financial information regarding each of their candidates. The income and assets of US politicians are of course, enormous by our standards, but what is significant is the mandatory requirement that each candidate should fully disclose relevant information regarding income and ownership of assets.

Accountability of political parties, especially when it comes to their financial transactions, is another area of vital concern in all-democratic societies. The audited financial statement of the Labour Party in Britain, for example, has now been released on the party website.

In the Annual Report for 2006, Messrs Howarth Clark Whitehill LLP, reputed Chartered Accountants of UK, have certified that the financial statements provided by the party give a true and fair view of its accounts for the preceding year and are in accordance with the UK's Generally Accepted Accounting Practices.

The report disclosed an income of 35.3 million pounds during 2005 and an expenditure of 49.8 million pounds, showing a huge deficit of 14.5 million pounds incurred by the Labour Party.

We need to prioritise electoral reform agenda

Reforms of the electoral process and administration are now being discussed and debated. Media and civil society have indeed played a crucial role in highlighting the needed reforms. It augurs well that people across the country are talking about the desired reforms and a broad consensus is emerging that these must take place very soon.

The issues are being highlighted in public debates, many of which are now sponsored by the media. All the recommended reforms, however, cannot be implemented straightaway. The immediate public concern relates to what specific reforms should be brought about by the interim government, how quickly these can be instituted and how they should be implemented.

Mr. Abdul Jalil of the Awami League was of course quite correct to point out that reforms are not only needed within the political parties, but also within the government and Parliament. There has to be a broad political consensus about the package of reforms and how they are to be prioritised. Obviously we have to determine in the first instance what is feasible and what is not.

Large scale, all embracing institutional reforms are extremely difficult to implement -- the history of administrative reforms throughout the world is history littered with many failures. Just look at the number of administrative reforms commissions set up in this country in the past and the precious little that they have achieved.

Reforms that aim to bring about big systemic changes are invariably complex, involving many institutions, which have their own vested interests and work processes that require changes in people's behaviour. Mostly, it is the implementing individuals or agencies themselves that resist introduction of the reforms, as they have been principal beneficiaries of the existing system.

They also require, in some cases, introduction of new technologies that often do not work, but are expensive to buy. Introduction of National ID cards with digital photos and preparation of accurate electoral rolls or voters list would be an example of this kind of a major institutional reform that requires application of the latest technologies, which will be costly and will have to be externally sourced.

It would be highly desirable to introduce the digitised voters ID card, but it may not be doable in the short run if we are to ensure early elections. The Election Commission has to decide how it would go about implementing the desired reforms, without getting bogged down in sophisticated ICT based technologies, massive training of a large number of personnel, installing computers and ensuring connectivity in remote locations.

Reforms must ensure accountability and transparency

While the long term institutional, systemic reforms are planned, it would be extremely important at this moment to stress an introduction of measures that will quickly ensure accountability of our political leaders as well as that of the top echelon within the bureaucracy.

Accountability in its ordinary connotation would mean establishing clearly the responsibilities of leadership to its constituency. One of the measures to enforce such responsibility will be no doubt the conduct of free and fair elections at periodic intervals. That is why introduction of an accurate voters list through a national registration system, and holding of fair, credible elections are absolutely crucial.

But, more importantly, accountability would mean that public leaders would be required to explain their conduct to the constituents on a regular basis. These reforms require new norms of behaviour by public representatives and government officials, those that will reduce incidence of corruption and abuse of powers in the future. These can be quickly instituted and will require minimal additional expenses.

They involve reforms in functioning of the legislature and control over working of public functionaries, the political parties and Parliament. It will require introduction of new practices and mandatory procedures to ensure that public functionaries explain, on a regular basis, the tasks undertaken by them and how they have performed in discharging the responsibilities they have been entrusted with.

This would also call for transparency in their conduct as well as in all official or public transactions. We can introduce at least three of these reform measures immediately, to ensure accountability of public representatives and senior officials.

These are exceedingly doable reforms, which can be distinguished from a long list of other highly desirable measures that will involve a protracted and complex process of administrative or legal changes.

First and foremost, all candidates who intend to contest elections as well those who will be incumbents to constitutional posts i.e. members of the Election Commission, Public Service Commission, heads of administrative departments, should declare their income earned in the preceding year and assets owned within the country.

If there are assets abroad but subject to taxation laws of another country or an international institution, these should also be declared, indicating the means by which these have been acquired.

This would ensure the minimum transparency in respect of the financial benchmarks of a candidate prior to elections and provide necessary safeguards against corruption and abuse of power for financial gains subsequently.

Second, we need to establish financial accountability within the party itself. To prevent abuse of political powers exercised by the central leadership, especially at the time of nominating candidates for parliamentary elections, it will be important to establish full accountability of party funds.

Such funds should be treated as public funds and all revenue as well as expenditure items should be identified. Accountability of the party funds must be subject to an independent, external audit and public disclosure should be made in respect of all financial transactions of the organisation through its annual report.

In the meantime, the Election Commission has to take effective measures to restrict campaign expenses and if required subsidise them to encourage candidates who may not have the means to bear bonafide campaign costs. A third area of quick reform is to simply revive, reactivate and reinforce the committee system of Parliament.

Parliament's supreme mandate for exercising all legislative authority and supervision of the executive should be reiterated -- currently, the members are preoccupied with all sorts of extra parliamentary activities, mostly involving personal suparish and tadbir, instead of focusing on legislative functions.

In particular, I would stress the need for reviving and strengthening the various committees that oversee the financial affairs of the republic. These committees have in the recent past ceased to function effectively.

They have gone through the motion of formal ritualistic meetings, instead of being the vigilant watchdogs of executive misdemeanour.

Various financial committees of Parliament, i.e., the Public Accounts Committee, the Estimates Committee and the public enterprise review committees need to be strengthened. These are committees that examine the adequacy of management systems, procedures and practices in executive departments, in relation to delivery of their outputs.

In addition to the Auditor General, we can invite reputed accounting and legal firms of the country to facilitate a more rigorous parliamentary review of the performance of the executive arm of the government.

Against the backdrop of recent aberrations of the parliamentary system, we have witnessed members of Parliament straying far away from their mandated legislative functions. They have been preoccupied more with extra parliamentary affairs and illegal patronage.

In the process, democratic practices have been subverted and corruption became rampant. We need to bring the legislators back to their constitutionally designated orbit. Under the parliamentary system, the cabinet remains responsible, collectively and individually, to Parliament.

The urgent need is to enforce ministerial accountability by enabling Parliament to hold ministers individually to account for their actions and decisions taken in their respective portfolios and in the government as a whole.

An effective Public Accounts Committee as well as the various other committees set up by Parliament will be powerful instruments to establish accountability of public representatives as well as the bureaucracy.

Khalid Shams is a former Civil Servant and Deputy Managing Director, Grameen Bank.