Bureaucratic corruption

Bureaucratic corruption

In the drive to eradicate corruption, proponents of reform
seem to be focusing exclusively on our governing and business
elite. However, it should not be forgotten that bureaucratic
corruption involving even the lowest ranking civil servants is
equally entrenched. Civil service corruption, disdain for the
public and bullying from officialdom has been perfected to an art
form in our country.

A small package containing 600 tablets of vitamins C, E and
Iron, and some cheap weight gain milk formula was recently sent
to me from abroad. Mail from abroad typically arrives opened or
otherwise tampered with, but my family and I were not prepared
for this latest surprise. Although all postage, tax, duties,
miscellaneous fees and regulations had been observed by the
sender -- and assurances given by the Indonesian postal service
and customs that the vitamins would arrive promptly -- the
vitamins were seized an impounded by the Director General of Food
and Medicine.

They said the vitamins could not be delivered by the post
office without two official documents, one from the director
general of the post office and one from another bureaucracy. The
price for this first document? Rp 125,000 per vitamin! A simple
calculation shows that it would cost Rp 75,000,000 simply to
obtain a piece of paper that may or may not enable me to retrieve
the vitamins.

When I pointed out that this price could not possibly be met,
the total value of the vitamins was about US$40, the officials
then said that the actual price was $175 per vitamin, or $105,000
for the whole box! This exceeds the price for which they were
purchased by more than 2,000 times, but the officials insisted
they were treating me fairly.

When I explained that the vitamins were for my elderly
grandmother, who is clinically anemic, the officials laughed
contemptuously and said they were only following "regulations."

When I asked to see the regulation(s) in writing, their tone
became abusive. They said the vitamins could be classified as
drugs and that I could therefore be jailed for attempting to
import them into Indonesia. Even as I invited them and any other
agencies of their choosing -- including the police, customs and
immigration -- to open the package and inspect the vitamins, the
officials said such a course of action would take many months to
complete and could only be undertaken after the money had been
paid in full.

They steadfastly refused to show me the said "regulation" and
said that under no circumstances could the vitamins be returned
to the sender, even if I agreed to pay the postage. When I told
the officials that I would reveal their behavior to the
newspapers and hire a lawyer to help retrieve my personal
property, they simply laughed again and invited me to do so.

Is there no consumer rights group which has the teeth to help
ordinary citizens with such matters? As the government shuffles
faces and makes grandiloquent noises about reform, Indonesians
have realized that government transparency has at last been
achieved: The government and much of the bureaucracy is
transparently and intractably corrupt.

ELLA F. DUMBELLA

Jakarta