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