A question of morals

A question of morals

From Sinar

I hail the Takesra (Family Welfare Savings) program that was dedicated by President Soeharto on Oct. 2, 1995. All Indonesian citizens should give their support to the program, bearing in mind that a nation's resilience can be judged by how big its national savings are.

The reason for collecting the funds from society is the fact that our ever growing development programs call for huge financial back up. In his Aug. 16, 1995 state address, President Soeharto said that the investment will increase in the sixth five-year development plan to Rp 815 trillion, 77 percent of which will be acquired from people's savings. It should be understood that national savings will strengthen the country's economy, and in turn will reduce our dependency on foreign loans.

It should also be realized that the success of the Takesra program depends, to a large extent, on the morals of bank personnel. We learn from past experience that corruption, collusion and manipulation can be attributed to the low morality of officials. We were sad to hear about the financial leakage in this country, with the German Der Spiegel dubbing Indonesia as one of the most corrupt countries. Even celebrated economist Prof. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo hinted that the financial leakage was as much as 30 percent. If the leakage could be eliminated, he said, Indonesia would not need to secure get foreign loans to finance its development projects. Our own budget would suffice to back up our economy.

ERWIN

Jakarta