Hiding behind 'grants'

The general public and officials of the Public Servants' Wealth Audit Commission (KPKPN) are tired of reading reports on so many public servants becoming unbelievably rich due to enormous hibah, or unidentified grants, that they have received from certain parties.

In fact the degree of astonishment could have been less serious if the commission members and our awe-struck people realized that the kleptomaniac regime of former president Soeharto reacted indifferently toward the reality that corruption had reached dangerous proportions during his three decades of autocratic rule. The despot also taught his supporters within his regime the art of flaunting their ill-gotten wealth without provoking strong reaction among the less-privileged groups of society.

So now we witness corrupt officials shamelessly riding in the world's most expensive cars, like Jaguar, amid the poor. In this demonstration of social insensitivity we are expected to remind ourselves that corrupt bureaucrats are the illegitimate sons born out of a marriage between iron-fist rule and immorality.

The use of the word "grant" by suddenly rich bureaucrats or former supporters, is part of their insult because in daily life grant means a special grant bequeathed unequivocally by someone to another. There are no strings attached. In recent years many ordinary people have donated grants to social or educational organizations for charity purposes.

Now, rational thinking people seem to need to rationalize even further to understand why public servants have suddenly gotten such huge fortunes, which they could not gain from their salaries even if they worked for 100 years. It is interesting to note that the most shocking report about this game called "grants" comes from Fuad Bawazier, at one time Soeharto's minister of finance. He claimed that 80 percent of his fortune worth Rp 50 billion, came from unexpected grants. His statement sent shock waves throughout the archipelago because normal thinking people could not accept the logic behind it.

Fuad has reportedly been angered by the public skepticism of his sincerity in the report and said that there was no dirty business dealings behind his wealth. But the public reaction is understandable because no one had previously heard that he had been so rich before he assumed the position of director general of tax and the minister of finance or that he had come from a family of generous moguls.

At least for the commission this is a test case. To convince the people that President Megawati Soekarnoputri's administration's crusade to establish clean governance is an all- out war against corruption, the commission should seriously probe into the illogical grants reports by investigating the nature of the gift, its origin and whether the givers and the receivers had paid tax.

Public servants are not allowed to receive anything directly or indirectly from anybody, but at the same time there is not a severe enough penalty that can be imposed for violating this rule. But if corrupt dealings are found in a report, the commission should send the case to law enforcement agencies to be processed later by the court.

There is a trend emerging now with more people pinning their hopes on the commission's anticorruption drive because they have not yet seen the new attorney general, MA Rachman, taking an interest in the crusade. His appointment to the job looks very much like an anticlimax to an anticorruption campaign advocated by his predecessor, Baharuddin Lopa, who died on duty three months ago. Rachman must be reminded that the trend by bureaucrats of breaching the people's trust is the most dangerous epidemic faced by the nation today.