Immigration office infested with corruption

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A man is standing in line in front of a counter at the Immigration Office in South Jakarta. He is carrying a cheap- looking folder containing copies of important documents, while his other hand is in his pocket to keep his wallet safe from any pickpockets who might be loitering about.

When his turn arrives, he steps toward the counter and submits the folders and their contents, whispering to the counter officer that he needs his passport application to be processed fast, not forgetting to slip several Rp 50,000 bills inside the folder.

The officer puts on a bored look and nods before placing the folder on top of a huge stack of identical-looking folders waiting on his desk to be transferred to other desks.

That is the scene inside the South Jakarta Immigration Office, when dozens of people come daily to apply for a new passport, renew old passports or apply for new temporary stay permit cards.

A middleman hanging around the office told The Jakarta Post it was necessary to give some money to the officers to get your passport finished fast. Otherwise the application would be left to collect dust in some corner.

"If you want your passport to be finished in one day then you should add about Rp 120,000 for the officers behind each counter," he said.

The middleman, named Tono, said he handed over Rp 100,000 at the first counter when he submitted the documents of his "clients", and then added an extra Rp 5,000 for each officer who took the fingerprints and photographs, and also for the officer checking the travel ban list.

"That amount may vary depending on whether you know the person or not, especially if you are new to the place and don't know anyone," Tono said.

Thus, Tono often charges his clients about Rp 500,000, almost twice the official Rp 260,000 fee for a passport (Rp 200,000 for the documents, Rp 55,000 for the photograph and Rp 5,000 for the stamps).

"We have to give the officers some money. That's why the passport fee is so high," Tono said.

Tono's colleague Andi, who was standing in front of the immigration office looking for customers, said almost the same thing.

"This is a public secret. Everyone knows these officers are corrupt but no one makes a fuss about it. They just accept it and give them money in order to get their documents processed," he said.

Andi added that the Central Jakarta Immigration Office in Kemayoran was the most expensive immigration office in the city, because the officers thought the people in the area were affluent.

A 31-year-old woman, Afiati, who was applying for a passport for her four-year-old daughter, was furious because she was told that if she "only" paid the official fee the passport would not be finished for two weeks, and she would have to check on the passport's progress every three days.

"The officer told me without shame that I had to give him Rp 500,000 if I wanted my daughter's passport finished tomorrow," she said.

She thought such practices no longer existed, especially after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's vow to stop government officials from demanding illegal payments.

However, she paid the money because she needed her daughter's passport immediately.

A spokesman for the Directorate General of Immigration, Supriatna Anwar, told the Post his office was working to eliminate corruption from the country's immigration offices.

"We are standardizing the rules to make it easier for the officers at each immigration office and also for the applicants to know what fees are needed for a new passport or any immigration document," Supriatna said.

Supriatna also urged the public to be proactive and report immigration officers who demanded extra payments to the police or his office.

"We have put notices in each of our branch offices urging people to report these officers. There is also a telephone number people can call to complain," Supriatna said.

He said civil servant found committing a crime, including corruption, could be fired, according to Governmental Regulation No. 30/1980.

"The perception that there are no sanctions for officers who violate the law is wrong," he said.

However, he refused to provide data on the number of immigration officials who had been punished for corruption.

Analysts say while punishments are in place for crooked officials, it remains difficult to enforce these punishments because they have to be approved by the officials' supervisors, who often share the illegal revenue collected by the officials.