Businessmen told not to pay bribes
Businessmen told not to pay bribes
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief encouraged businessmen yesterday to have the courage to refuse to pay bribes in order to minimize "invisible costs" so they can pay their workers more.
Businessmen should also stop offering bribes to government officials and wasting their money to sponsor social events or campaigns for socio-political organizations, he said.
"Labor costs should not swell because of invisible costs," he told journalists.
Latief was responding to press reports that companies are unable to pay their workers more because the employers have to spend between 20 percent and 30 percent of the cost of running their businesses to pay illegal fees and other bribes.
In comparison, companies spend only an estimated seven percent of their total costs for their workers' salaries and allowances.
The well being of workers has been a burning issue since the government announced its plan to increase the minimum regional wages nationwide as of April.
Labor activists say that the invisible costs are to blame for the current low salary standards because entrepreneurs include the illegal levies in the calculation of their overall business expenses.
Latief, a successful businessman, said that business people should not be afraid to refuse to pay bribes to government officials.
"There are the press, the nation's legislative body and the vice president to report to in case of extortion involving government officials," he said.
Latief questioned the estimate of between 20 percent to 30 percent of costs going for bribes. He said that proportion of companies' total costs seemed high.
Latief added that although many employers felt pressured to pay the invisible costs, others have deliberately collaborated with government officials to keep their workers' salaries low.
"This is unfair. Employers and officials involved in such bribery and collusion should be brought to court," Latief said.
A total of 96 businessmen were brought to court last year for violating the daily minimum wage regulations and 16 of them have been convicted.
Besides that, over a hundred officials of the Ministry of Manpower were punished last year for various violations.
"Collusion and corruption, are two major enemies of development. They must be eradicated to create a clean and respectable government," he said.
Supervision
He said his office would tighten supervision in factories to ensure that the planned raise in the regional minimum wages as of this April is duly implemented.
He said all of the 152,000 registered companies across the country have the financial capability to pay the minimum wage as required by the government.
Latief recently issued several decrees stipulating the planned raise in minimum daily wage levels by a range of from 11 percent to 35 percent. He took this action to implement the government's policy of raising the minimum wage to a level that will meet the minimum physical needs of workers.
"We will no longer speak of the daily physical minimum as of this April. New steps are being taken to raise the worker wages to meet their basic needs," he said.
Asked about the possibility of designing a national wage system to replace the daily minimum wage regulations, Latief said: "It is impossible at the present because our workforce is over-supplied and its quality is relatively low."
About 76 percent of the workforce of around 84 million consists of people who have only elementary school educations, or who have dropped out of secondary school.
Yesterday, the All Indonesia Workers Union urged the government to strictly monitor the implementation of the plan to increase the regional minimum wages nationwide.
Union deputy chairman Marzuki Achmad said the supervision was needed to see to it that companies abide by the government regulations.
Marzuki said that the union, the only one that the government recognizes, should be involved in the supervision.
"The pay hike is mandatory and any company that violates the regulation should be brought to trial," he told Antara news agency. (rms)