Code of ethics needed for clean government

Code of ethics needed for clean government

JAKARTA (JP): A senior military officer says Indonesia needs a
code of ethics to ensure that civil servants' conduct contributes
to the campaign for a clean, professional and respected
administration.

Maj. Gen. A.M. Hendropriyono, a participant at a course at the
military think-tank, the Institute of National Resilience
(Lemhannas), said during a seminar yesterday that the state
apparatus has yet to achieve the ideal level of participation in
the campaign for a clean government.

"We need a code of ethics to ensure that no part of the state
apparatus violates the principles of good administration," he
said. "We need the code to help guard the state apparatus' moral
uprightness."

The seminar was opened by Lemhannas Governor Lt. Gen. Sofian
Effendi and was attended by 200 people. The other speakers
included legislator Aisjah Amini and secretary-general of the
Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals Adi Sasono.

The course is a series of discussions held over five days.
Each day a paper written by a group of experts at the Institute
is analyzed.

Brig. Gen. Luhut Panjaitan, chief of the Army Infantry Arsenal
Center, delivered the paper in yesterday's seminar. One of the
issues it focused on was the limited role of the state apparatus,
which includes members of the Armed Forces as well as four
million civil servants, in redressing social divisions.

Hendropriyono pointed out that unless the gaps are closed, the
nation would risk disintegration.

"If we wish to grow into a strong nation, we need to address
the problem of increasingly wide social divisions, and the state
apparatus should all work as one in the campaign," he said.

Hendropriyono stressed the need to improve the quality of
civil servants, and their distribution in the country. A number
of regions in the eastern Indonesia, for instance, face a
shortage of experts in various fields, he said.

Panjaitan agreed on the need to improve the state apparatus'
quality. "The civil servants, who should be the servants of the
public, often act is if they were the ones who should be served,"
he said.

Hendropriyono said that the poor service rendered by civil
servants at all levels has long been the target of public
criticism.

"The fact that business tycoon Eddy Tansil could escape from
prison recently showed how unprofessional our civil servants
are," he said.

Tansil was jailed in 1994 for defrauding the state-owned Bank
Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo) of US$620 million. He was serving
a 20-year prison term when he walked out of Cipinang prison after
allegedly bribing warders on May 4.

Twelve of the warders have been named as suspects in the
escape. An official at the prosecutor's office told the press
last week that the office received the dossiers of the warders,
now under arrest, from the police last week.

"We can't say now when the dossiers will be submitted to the
court for trial because we have yet to process them," the
official said.

Tansil is believed to have fled the country and his
whereabouts is unknown. (swe/imn)