Integrity called for

Integrity called for

A number of legislators appeared most eager to get to the truth and ask questions when Rudy Ramli, Bank Bali's former president director, testified in front of the House of Representatives. This is a practice that deserves to be continued and others involved in the scandal must be given the same treatment.

Besides, there are many others, state authorities as well as leading personalities in private business, who must appear before the House. The problem is that the House must remain consistent in its stance and treat everyone with no regard of status since all citizens are equal before the law.

Now that we are in the middle in our reform campaign and are trying to restore the dignity of the law in the eyes of our own people and of the world, the time has come to test the integrity of our legislators by observing their handling of the Baligate scandal.

We appreciate the persevering attitude of our House members, even though so far relatively little of the truth has come to light. We must be patient and careful in tackling the next episode of the case because of the possibility that a number of state officials are indeed involved in the scandal.

If those suspicions are proven to be correct and a conspiracy does indeed exist involving certain individuals at the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, Bank Indonesia and the Standard Chartered Bank to fix a hostile takeover of Bank Bali, then our national banking industry is truly facing a serious danger.

-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta