'Harsh punishment needed to eliminate corruption'
'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)