Graft exposed, who cares?

Graft exposed, who cares?

The audit findings that were reported to the House of
Representatives by the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) and
the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) on Wednesday and Thursday
respectively only serve to validate the assessments made by
international corruption-watch organizations that list the
Indonesian government as one of the most corrupt in the world.

The Comptroller (government internal audit body) said its
auditing of state budget implementation and a number of state
companies for the whole of fiscal 2000 and the first semester of
2001, had uncovered 14,541 instances of deviations from budgetary
rules and irregularities in financial management that resulted in
Rp 9.5 trillion (US$9.5 billion) in state losses.

The audit body reported that in the period under review it had
submitted 49 cases of corruption with sufficient legally
admissible evidence to the Attorney General's Office for further
prosecution. These cases involved a total of Rp 270 billion.

The Supreme Audit Agency released no less shocking findings on
Thursday, disclosing the uncovering of almost 1,900 instances of
aberrations and breaches of budgetary rules and financial
management procedures in state budget implementation and a number
of state companies in 2000 and the first semester of 2001. These
resulted in nearly Rp 39 trillion in state losses.

Those who take an interest in the summaries of the semester
audit reports produced by the two audit bodies will certainly
find nothing surprising in the latest findings. Their earlier
semester reports that were released last October also revealed
thousands of instances of irregularities, deviations and breaches
of budgetary rules and public finance management procedures.

It is nonetheless shocking to learn from the auditors' reports
that the government seems to be so powerless in combating
malfeasance in the public sector despite its oft repeated
pronouncements that clean government and good governance are at
the top of its list of priorities.

In fact, so few have been the corruption cases that have been
brought to court that the auditors' reports look like almost
being a waste of time and effort.

True, given the difficulty of finding evidence that is
admissible in court, many of the instances of irregularities or
aberrations discovered in the management of the public finances
are not amenable to further prosecution.

But there is no doubt that the findings demonstrate a relaxed
stance on the part of the government as regards malfeasance. The
discovery of thousands of instances of deviations every year only
shows that the government's tolerance of breaches of rules or
deviations from regulations seems to have reached such a level
that things that cannot immediately be classified as outright
corruption are taken lightly. The government seems not to realize
that a high level of discipline starts with strictly abiding by
the rules of the game, that is to say every provision of the law
no matter how petty it may seem to be.

Another development that makes us increasingly doubtful about
the government's resoluteness in fighting corruption is the
acknowledgement by the chairmen of both audit agencies that most
government institutions remain ignorant of their audit findings
and recommendations.

Obviously, part of the problem is caused by the lack of
enforcement power on the part of both audit bodies and the lack
of clarity in the mandate, scope, role and degree of independence
of the Supreme Audit Agency and the Comptroller as the
government's internal auditors. Nor is there a systematic follow-
up mechanism for ensuring action on the auditors' findings.

Worse still, as the Supreme Audit Agency's chairman Satrio
Budihardjo Joedono admitted, many institutions simply refuse to
provide access to his auditors, arguing that they had already
been audited by the Comptroller.

If the government is really serious about its program to
develop good governance in order to create clean government, it
should immediately realign its internal audit framework and
rationalize the roles and responsibilities of both audit bodies,
which sometimes duplicate each other's work. It need not wait for
the enactment of the bill on the auditing of the state accounts
that is still under deliberation in the House of Representatives
(DPR).

Transparency and accountability, as the basic principles of
good governance, need appropriate institutions and public
reporting requirements, and further demand a central agency to
enforce fiscal management discipline.