Corruption: What to do?

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.