Corruption: What to do?

Eradicating corruption in Indonesia will take time because cases are rampant. "Such practices have been deeply rooted in society for decades. I need extra prayers and moral support from the people to make our work a success," the chairman of the government's newly installed anti-corruption team, Adi Andojo Sutjipto, is quoted as saying at a news conference on Tuesday, the very day he was inducted by President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Not a very promising beginning, one might say, coming from the leader of a team whose authorities include tapping telephone conversations, blocking bank accounts and seizing materials sent through all telecommunications services. Furthermore, the team includes state prosecutors, police officers, officials of the central bank and other state institutions and activists from non- governmental organizations -- all, as chairman Adi Andojo said, carefully selected professionals. That, at least, should give it the necessary teeth to bite through the cloak of stealth and deception behind which corruptors -- specifically in the fields of banking, taxation, capital markets, trade and industry, commodity markets and monetary and financial affairs -- are hiding.

But perhaps it is just as well that Indonesians are forewarned of the difficulties that lie ahead. In the past, Indonesians have often been frustrated to see people they "know" of having misappropriated huge sums of money go scot-free. This has raised suspicions of connivance or collaboration, or the possibility that politics is an encumbering factor. Forewarned is forearmed seems to be Adi Andojo's chosen manner of working.

Even so, a number of cases simply seem to ask to be investigated. The Rp 35 billion corruption case at the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) is a good case in point. So far, the agency's deputy chief, Sapuan, has been named a suspect in the alleged graft case. But who is to guarantee that it will proceed and that the guilty persons will be arrested? What, for example, has become of the Bank Bali scandal? Months after it broke into the open, it is still far from being settled?

The slow progress of the case against former President Soeharto is yet another example of the sluggishness of the government prosecutors' manner of working. Certainly it is in the best interest of everybody concerned -- ex-president Soeharto included -- to know for certain whether or not he is found guilty of corruption. If anything, the endless interrogations only generate strain on the ex-president that he must find difficult to bear. As far as the public is concerned, politics and other unknown factors are still hampering the course of justice.

Adi Andojo's warning that it may take a long time to eradicate corruption in Indonesia may be true. Certainly, everybody is aware that corruption does exist. The problem is that it exists on such a scale as to make it difficult to eradicate in a short time. Under such circumstances what can be done is to do first things first and leave the rest for other agencies to tackle.

Adi Andojo may need a little more than extra prayers and moral support. Specifically, he needs the public's participation in his efforts to stamp out corruption in the country, or, at the very least, bring it to a bare minimum.