PETALING JAYA: Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) chairman Tun Daim Zainuddin has called on the government to make the CEP's recommendations available to the public.

In an interview with Channel News Asia (CNA), Daim said as part of the CEP's efforts to look into the government finances, it had interviewed more than 300 individuals, including bankers, businessmen, civil servants, civil society members and union officials.

However, Daim said those interviews had revealed a culture of turning a blind eye towards corruption.

Hence, Daim said this time around it would take the country's economy a much longer time to recover compared to the past.

"It's far, far more difficult and complicated this time because it's the (previous) government that had created the problem; lots of money was wasted and stolen.

"I was asked to look into figures, analyse and send back to the prime minister. It will take some time before we can put the economy back to shape," Daim was quoted as saying.

In the report, Daim had also said one of the options at shoring up the country's finances the government was looking was to list some of the government's assets on the stock market.

"At the CEP, we have studied the proposal submitted to us on monetisation. We don't advise to sell these assets directly to the market. Where companies are profitable, we recommend them to go for an initial public offering (IPO), create value and let Malaysians invest in these companies," Daim said.

Daim had also suggested for the government to be forthright with the electorate as the difficult global economic environment and country's finances will make it hard for some of the election promises to be implemented.

"Malaysians are very kind, patient and understanding. If you explain to them, they will understand and accept. Deliver what you promised in the manifesto and if for any reasons you cannot, explain clearly. The people are reasonable if you are honest with them," he said.

On May 12, the CEP was formed to assist in shaping policies and programmes to achieve Pakatan Harapan's 100-day promises and to advise the government on economic and financial matters.

The CEP has since submitted its report containing its recommendations to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

However, Dr Mahathir had said that the CEP's 100-day report may not be made public as the report was for the government to base their decisions on.