Audit body seeks to shed image of toothless tiger
Fitri Wulandari The Jakarta Post Jakarta
The State Officials' Wealth Audit Commission (KPKPN), smeared a toothless tiger, is seeking a legal basis to have dishonest officials punished for providing false information or for refusing to disclose their wealth to the public.
Deputy KPKPN Chairman Muchayat said on Monday that the KPKPN had drafted a bill on the amendment of Law No. 28/1999 on clean governance to include legal action against recalcitrant officials.
"With the inclusion of clear legal action, KPKPN will be more effective," Muchayat said in a meeting with activists of the Association for Humanity and Justice (Humanika).
KPKPN has also demanded that the law stipulate a clear definition on the position of state officials, no matter how senior, to be audited.
Muchayat said the House of Representatives had agreed to include punishments in the law that would provide the legal basis for KPKPN, which was established in 1999.
Recently, KPKPN, the police and the Attorney General's Office signed a memorandum of agreement on cooperation between the three institutions.
So far, the commission has only been able to persuade state officials to fill in audit forms that it had provided without the authority to take legal action if they failed to do so.
The absence of a basis for legal action against recalcitrant officials has been attributed to the low compliance in KPKPN's request for wealth reports.
In February, the commission distributed 50,000 forms to state officials to request that their wealth be audited. But as of September, only around 7,800 of the forms had been returned to KPKPN.
So far, KPKPN has announced the wealth of 2,504 public officials. It has been verifying 175 of those reports and has targeted 1,500 by the end of December.
Humanika coordinator Bursah Zanubi said the sluggish working performance of KPKPN had raised concerns that it would remain "a toothless tiger" in the drive to eradicate corruption.
"As a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that is concerned with democracy and the eradication of corruption in Indonesia, we are compelled to provide KPKPN with suggestions so that it is able to improve its performance to promote a government free from corruption, collusion, nepotism," Bursah said.
Humanika urged KPKPN to develop its ability to investigate state officials who had amassed ill-gotten wealth in the form of "grants" or "gifts".