ICW takes textbook allegation to KPK

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) alleged on Friday that corrupt practices are taking place in the provision of textbooks by local officials, administrators and legislators in four regencies.

ICW reported to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) that its investigation indicated that regional autonomy had allowed much collusion to occur among local officials of the Ministry of National Education, regional administrators, and Provincial Legislative Councils (DPRD) in book procurement in the regencies of Garut (West Java), Batang, Semarang (both in Central Java) and Sleman (in Yogyakarta).

According to the ICW Public Accountability Review, the corrupt practices included introduction of local laws that benefited vested interests, bribery, direct appointment of publishers without proper tender procedures, sub-contracting without bids, production of substandard books, price mark-ups, and book rebates.

ICW's investigation, instigated by reports from local communities, found that although education officials are often seen as the main culprits, they were actually only executors and victims of higher level bureaucrats.

Fatar of the Batang Budget Monitoring Forum explained that collusion between bureaucrats and legislators was at the root of corruption in many regions. "For example, in 2004 the executive and legislative bodies of Batang regency agreed to execute an investment loan worth Rp 21 billion for textbooks, which was to be paid in installments over a period of three years. However, existing regulation No. 107/2000 requires that long-term loans can only be granted for facilities that produce income to pay back the loan."

"The regent and DPRD of Batang also legalized the direct appointment of PT Balai Pustaka to carry out a book publishing project worth Rp 7.3 billion. However, Presidential Decree No. 80/2003 states that all projects worth more than Rp 50 million must be put up for tender," Fatar said.

Prior to the late 1990s, when national government was highly centralized, textbook production was monopolized by stated-owned publisher Balai Pustaka. In order to assist the government in decentralizing the provision of educational materials, the World Bank provided loans to the Indonesian government to conduct tenders to select book publishers across the country that could provide quality textbooks for schools.

In September 2004, the World Bank stopped loans to 10 individuals and 26 firms due to fraudulent and corrupt practices in relation to its Indonesian Book and Reading Development Project. The World Bank said that the action was part of an anti-corruption drive initiated by its President James Wolfensohn.

Fatar, commenting on efforts at decentralization in education, said that corrupt practices still existed even though the actors had changed. "Now, according to our studies in Batang, the main way these criminals act is through book rebates, which are signed off by teachers."

In its report, ICW cited the provision of a 20 percent rebate for textbook projects in 2003 to Batang administrators by Balai Pustaka. The rebate, however, was not put into state coffers.

ICW's Public Service Monitoring Division officer Ade Irawan said that price markups and reductions in book quality are also very common.

"Despite price markups, the quality of books is substandard. The paper used is very low quality, as many as 75 pages could be missing from the books, and the book topics do not fit into the national curriculum. This situation, however, is considered appropriate by the people responsible for approving it," he said. (005)