Higher pay won't curb graft: Tamin

Petrus Sugiyo The Jakarta Post in Jakarta

A debate on the fight against corruption practices has surfaced again as two ministers and legislators differ in their concepts on how to eradicate the fraudulent conduct.

State Minister of Administrative Reforms Feisal Tamin said on Thursday he was among those who distrusted opinions that higher salaries would curb corruption.

The statement was made one day after his colleague State Minister of National Development Planning Kwik Kian Gie said before legislators that higher salaries for government employees are badly needed to help curb rampant corruption practices.

"The level of salaries has nothing to do with corruption," Feisal said at a hearing with the House of Representatives' Commission II for home affairs.

He said a more important thing than stopping corruption was how to improve the integrity, commitment and morality of civil servants. "At the very least, an improvement program must be carried out for them through education and training," he said.

Separately, several legislators also gave a thumbs down to the idea raised by Kwik Kian Gie to increase civil servants' salaries for the sake of corruption elimination. "That idea is not substantial. We face a problem ourselves in which we only make a kind of rhetoric in corruption eradication," said Akil Mochtar, member of the commission from Golkar faction.

Citing as an example reports by the Supreme Audit Agency on financial irregularities in many offices, Akil said none of the irregularities was traced. "If there are irregularities, then logically, there should be suspects. But where are they?"

Data disclosed on Tuesday at a hearing between the Development Finance Comptroller and Commission IX for finance showed that 2,508 financial irregularities had been found over the last six months, causing state losses amounting to Rp 2.2 trillion (US$231.57 million).

He said the idea to raise the salaries of civil servants would only spark people's anger. "Besides, the salary increase will not guarantee an effective corruption eradication," he said.

Fellow legislator Suparlan from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said a salary hike would not automatically cut corruption practices because such activities had structurally been established.

"I think the idea shows that he (Kwik) sees the problem from only one aspect. There is no need to meet demands for a salary increase," he said.

Deputy chairman of Commission I Hamdan Zoelva said efforts to terminate corruption practices must be executed simultaneously. "It would be better to provide civil servants with more facilities than to give them a salary increase," he said.

Hamdan said raising the salaries would cause a dilemma because on the one hand it could be used to curb corruption, but on other it could cause social jealousy.

Feisal said that his office is currently setting up a standard reference to evaluate the accountability of civil servants.

Therefore, the public is invited to take part in the evaluation process, he said. "The performance of the state apparatus must be monitored jointly, by related offices."

The lack of professionalism, commitment, consistency, honesty and responsibility of civil servants was to blame for the rampant practices of corruption, he said.

Akil agreed with the idea to impose a maximum penalty of death for corrupters, but Hamdan doubted its implementation. "How can we implement a maximum penalty of death when we never hear judges sentencing corrupters to life imprisonment?" he asked.