Civil servants ordered to be neutral in party politics
Civil servants ordered to be neutral in party politics
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
State Minister of Civil Servants' Empowerment Faisal Tamin has
instructed all civil servants in Indonesia to be neutral in party
politics, while staying free of corruption.
Faisal, who is also the chairman of the Indonesian Civil
Servants' Association (Korpri), said here that they should
refrain from past practices in earlier general elections in which
they only gave their support to one political party, which is the
former ruling party Golkar.
"You should be neutral in order to maximize your service to
the public," he told a group of civil servants of North Sumatra
province during a forum here on Thursday.
He said that, when civil servants supported a political party,
they could not fully serve the public.
If civil servants want to get involved with a party, he said,
then they should quit their jobs first.
"But if civil servants can enter the political parties, why
don't we just set up our own political party?" he asked, only
half-jokingly.
Faisal also warned civil servants not to engage in corruption,
and added that anyone found guilty of graft would be fired, and
sentenced according to regulation.
He said that the government would apply harsh measures because
many officials have been caught abusing their power, often
thinking that they enjoyed legal protection from prosecution.
"I warn you that every undisciplined civil servant will be
punished -- this is for sure," he said, adding that there are
corrupt civil servants in every province in the country.
Meanwhile, the head of the Medan Prosecutor's Office,
Chairuman Harahap, told The Jakarta Post that most of the 132
corruption cases in Medan being handled by his agency were
actually committed by civil servants.
Chairuman said that, during the period between August 2001 and
March of this year, the prosecutor's office had arrested 12
suspects in corruption cases who were mostly government
officials.
He said that they would root out more cases, as corruption is
known to be rampant in the province.
The prosecutor's office, he added, had handed over the
dossiers of corruption cases to the courts of, among others,
Penyabungan and Sidikalang.
Asked whether their low salaries may have led many civil
servants to corruption, as some have suggested, he replied that
the reason had neither relevance, nor merit.
"Small salaries should not be reason to become corrupt ...
They should maintain their integrity and morality while serving
the country sincerely," he said.