'Harsh punishment needed to eliminate corruption'
JAKARTA (JP): Only stringent punishment will eliminate rampant corruption in the country, said a cabinet minister yesterday.
Minister of National Development Planning/Chairman of National Development Planning Board Ginandjar Kartasasmita made this clear as he addressed the eighth congress of the Indonesian National Youth Committee (KNPI), a politically well-connected umbrella organization of youth groups here.
"Harsh punishment is the only way to eradicate corruption here. There is no other way," Ginandjar said.
He lamented that the existing legal system had failed to deter corruptors, and compared Indonesia with other countries which have seriously attempted to fight corruption.
"Many senior government officials in India, the United States and Japan, for instance, were dismissed because of corruption," he said.
Although calls to fight corruption are by no means novel, Ginandjar's statement is like a breath of fresh air, coming as it does from a senior official. The late Mohammad Hatta, the country's first vice president who died in March 1980, said decades ago that corruption had become a "culture" here.
The doyen of economic sciences, Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, once described how corruption led to the loss of 30 percent of the country's development fund.
The German-based Der Spiegel magazine reported in its July 1995 edition that Indonesia ranked first in terms of corruption out of 41 countries with rising economies.
These statistics came from research conducted by Transparency International, a research institute under the Goettingen University.
The magazine ranked Indonesia last with a score of 1.94, below the People's Republic of China with 2.16. The cleanest country was New Zealand with 9.55.
Tough
Ginandjar admitted the battle against corruption was tough.
"We have the laws and the spirit to fight it, but still we have corruption here," he said.
The Rp 1.3 trillion (US$620 million) loan scandal at the state-owned Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo) would not have occurred without the help of officials from the Bank Indonesia central bank, he said.
He said he believed that Indonesia would someday be able to clean up corruption.
"It will take time for Indonesia to eradicate corruption," he said. South Korea underwent a lengthy process before it was able to fight corruption there, he said.
Later in his address Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono called for Indonesian youth to uphold the country's belief in unity in diversity. He urged them help uphold the motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity).
"We can avoid sociocultural conflicts by maintaining this principle," he said.
Such conflicts had proven to be difficult to settle in other developing countries, he said.
Moerdiono also called on Indonesian youth to develop their skills and knowledge so that they can keep up with the increasingly stiff global competition and trade liberalization.
"Competition for employment will not just be between our own people. Our competitors will come from foreign countries too," he told the participants.
Indonesian youth should learn and master new skills with marketable value, if they find they are unable to compete with their current skills. (imn)