Finance ministry signs MOU on corruption eradication

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Despite his "I don't care" response to a recent survey that found two institutions under his supervision to be among the most corrupt a day earlier, Minister of Finance Yusuf Anwar on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

KPK chairman Taufiqurrahman Ruki said the MoU was very important since the KPK had indicated potential loopholes for corruption in the state budgetary accounting system handled by the finance ministry.

"We have discussed this matter for the past three months and agreed upon the need for a full review of the system," he said.

With the review, Ruki said he hoped corruption, such as bribery and markups within the state budgetary system, could be addressed, along with the potential for graft within the ministry's own administration system.

Yusuf explained that revamping his ministry's administration system was among the many efforts to minimize the opportunities for corruption to take place.

"That is the main reason for reviewing the taxation and customs laws," he said. "It is also to prevent opportunities for backroom deals."

Ruki added that he expected the anticorruption drive to be fully implemented by all ministry officials following the MoU.

"I expect the ministry's top officials to enforce monitoring against corruption within their offices from now on," he said in a stern manner.

With the MoU, the KPK will have the authority to share information and conduct joint investigations with the ministry's inspectorate general.

Previously, the KPK had asked Yusuf to sign "a contract" with the Director General of Taxation Hadi Purnomo and Director General of Customs and Excise Eddy Abdurrachman to keep them accountable for the potential graft in their offices.

The finance ministry established a new investigation bureau specifically for corruption within its inspectorate general late last year.

The tax and customs offices have been under fire of late following numerous studies highlighting the gross level of corruption within each, including this week's survey by Transparency International Indonesia (TII).

The 2004 Indonesian Corruption Perception Index survey, with 1,305 business owners and top managers of local and multinational firms as respondents, revealed that the customs service had the highest incidence of corrupt interactions at 62 percent.

Some 140 respondents said they had to pay bribes to the customs service approximately 31 times per year, with each bribe averaging Rp 38 million (US4,086).

The tax office, which is also supervised by the finance ministry, was ranked as the 11th most corrupt institution on the list.

However, Yusuf was not exactly overjoyed by the survey. "It (the corruption within my ministry) is an old story. I know about it, you know about it and everybody knows about it," he said. "That's why we shouldn't make a fuss about it. What's more important is that we keep on working to improve things."