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)