Govt campaign against corruption 'half-hearted'

Govt campaign against corruption 'half-hearted'

JAKARTA (JP): The government's move to probe into high level
corruption cases in the country is a half-hearted effort merely
to refine its image, an American expert on Indonesia's political
economy said here Monday.

Jeffrey A. Winters, an associate professor at the Northwestern
University in Illinois, expressed his skepticism over the
political will of the government to investigate corruptions
involving the high-ups.

"I see all this as cosmetics," he told reporters after a
discussion on corruption.

"This government is an extension of the New Order regime,
clearly they must try to convince people that they aren't part of
the old crowds," he said, citing the 32-year regime of Soeharto,
who resigned from the presidency in May.

Winters said sincere investigation into the corruption
allegations might backfire on many of the incumbent government
officials because they had also abused their powers to gain
wealth in the past.

He cited the recent government's move led by Attorney General
Andi Muhammad Ghalib and the Coordinating Minister for
Development Supervision Hartarto Sastrosoenarto to probe into
Soeharto's wealth as inconclusive.

He said the authorities lacked the political will to continue
their inquiry not because they feared the former president but
because many senior officials could be dragged down by the
investigation's result.

"If there's a momentum, it will snowball on them. They are all
going to get hit," he said.

In June last year, Winters disclosed that a third of the World
Bank's loans to Indonesia had been siphoned off by the
bureaucrats in the country. The allegation was immediately denied
by the bank's officials then.

However, the World Bank finally admitted a few weeks ago that
some of its loan funds had leaked and disappeared into the pokets
of officials. The confirmation was made after the Asian Wall
Street Journal published in August the World Bank's internal
memorandum on the incidence of graft in Indonesia.

At the discussion here on Monday, Winters criticized some of
the incumbent ministers who had prospered while they were in
office during the Soeharto era but who are now standing out as
corruption fighters.

These included the Coordinating Minister for Economy, Finance
and Industry Ginandjar Kartasasmita, who recently initiated the
establishment of a fact-finding team to investigate the World
Bank's funds that had allegedly been siphoned off, he said.

Ginandjar, Winters said, had a dubious past to be a promoter
of an anti-corruption movement because he was currently under
allegations of collusion with mining company, PT Freeport
Indonesia copper mining company in Irian Jaya, during his tenure
as the mines and energy minister in the late 1980s.

Until he resolves this issue and comes out clean, "it's not
proper for him to be the pioneer of anti corruption", he said.

"How can we trust those who have been doing the crime. It's
like appointing the head of the Gambino crime family in the U.S.
to eliminate mafia," he said.

Winters said the World Bank largely contributed to the loss
funds in Indonesia and in other developing countries.

They had turned a blind eye towards irregular uses of their
funds by their sovereign clients, he said.

"The relationships between the Bank and its government clients
have always been very cosy and secretive," he said.

The World Bank has claimed to bear no responsible over the use
of the funds, although its Articles of Agreement stated that the
bank must ensure that its funds be used properly by the sovereign
clients for the intended projects, he said.

Winter asserted that the World Bank should, therefore, share
the responsibility over the lost funds. If the allegations were
proven true, Indonesia should not repay the embezzled portion of
the loans. The bank should allow the Indonesian government to
renegotiate the amount of debts it should repay.

Winters estimated that a total of US$30 billion had been
channeled by the World Bank to finance projects in Indonesia
since the 1960s. (das)