Audit agency should be empowered: Activists

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Anti-corruption activists say widespread corruption in procurements of goods and services in most units of the city administration cannot be stopped due to the alleged involvement of the City Audit Agency (Bawasda).

They say officials at the agency are not obliged to disclose their findings on irregularities on certain procurements. Therefore, according to the activists, they often compromise with officials of the working units over their findings.

Chairman of Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) Teten Masduki said on Thursday that empowering the agency could be the starting point to end corruption.

"The City Audit Agency should be independent and not be a sub- ordinate of the governor. Its members should be elected by the City Council, not be appointed by the governor," Teten told The Jakarta Post.

Teten was commenting on corruption in the procurement of goods and services in the city administration, where the value of corrupted funds could amount to as much as 35 percent of the total allocated funds.

Procurement in the city administration involves a large amount of money. It is estimated to account for Rp 2.2 trillion of the city's Rp 5.7 trillion routine spending in 2002.

Teten also stressed that the findings of irregularities by the City Audit Agency needed to be made transparent. He said the agency should be obliged to announce their findings to the public.

Besides empowering the auditing agency, the city administration should improve its bureaucratic system, which remains vulnerable to corruption.

Marco Kusumawijaya, an urban observer, shared Teten's opinion, saying the city administration's current internal auditing was part of the problem, because he alleged that most of the auditors were corrupt.

"As a taxpayer, I am disappointed that my money is badly spent by officials. Therefore, the auditing process should be improved by inviting people who are credible and possess some integrity to work at the audit agency," he told the Post.

He also said the administration should involve the public as taxpayers should also help supervise the procurement of goods and services, by inviting their representatives to become members of the tender committee.

He said that in many countries, taxpayers play a significant role in controlling government spending and complain to the government if the money is spent improperly.

"I think we should encourage public participation in controlling the government's spending, because if it works well, it will be a significant move against corruption," said Marco, who is a gubernatorial candidate.