BPK slams govt over corruption
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) blasted again on Thursday the government's lackluster efforts in combating corruption, saying most of the suspected corruption cases discovered by the agency have been ignored.
BPK's chairman Satrio B. Judono said the agency had reported a total of 6,162 suspected corruption cases since 2001 to the Attorney General's Office and the National Police.
However, only 505 cases or just over 8 percent of the total had been investigated by both law enforcement agencies, Satrio said.
"As I have repeatedly said, they (the government) lack quite a lot of accountability," said Judono on the sidelines of a plenary session with the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
In terms of value, the 6,162 corruption cases had the potential of causing state losses of Rp 2.05 trillion (US$242 million), while by handling the 505 cases, the government is likely to regain Rp 24.4 billion or a little more than 1 percent of the potential losses, according Satrio.
The small number of cases actually acted upon by the government serve as more evidence that the country's half-hearted efforts to stamp out graft and corruption have again proven fruitless.
Since the start of the reform era in 1998 -- which was marked by the downfall of the corrupt regime of former president Soeharto -- successive administrations, including the current administration of President Megawati Soekarnoputri, pledged to eradicate corruption in the country.
However, most analysts agree that corruption remains as rampant as it was during former President Soeharto's administration.
During the plenary session, BPK revealed that in the first half of this year it managed to discover 87 cases of corruption worth Rp 1.94 billion in the use of 2003 state budget; 369 cases worth Rp 6.25 billion in the use of budgets by regional governments and regionally owned enterprises; and 117 cases worth Rp 7.79 billion in state-owned enterprises.
The size of all of the budgets audited by the agency during the period totaled Rp 5.09 trillion.
The agency also reported that it had discovered 174 cases of irregularities between January and June this year, which potentially caused a total of Rp 233 billion (US$27.7 million) in losses to the state.
Most of the irregularities were in the category of "deviations from law", totaling 121 cases worth Rp 131.5 billion, followed by "cases of failure to comply with austerity and efficiency", which totaled 30 cases worth Rp 57.5 trillion.
In third place was "deviations from a set of objects" which totaled 23 cases worth Rp 44.1 billion.
Elsewhere, the agency also called the 2002 Bank Indonesia balance sheet "satisfactory, but with some exceptions" because of the alleged misuse of Rp 20.9 trillion in state funds stashed in government account number 502.
The 502 funds were originally allocated to cover the financial obligations of closed banks as part of the government's blanket guarantee program.