KPK to learn from China's antigraft drive: Chief
Primastuti Handayani, The Jakarta Post/Beijing
Top officials from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) have traveled with the President to China to find out how the Asian giant has successfully fought corruption.
"China has been widely known for taking harsh measures against corruption, including by making 100 coffins (in advance for any state official found guilty of corruption); one of them for the prime minister. It's a good move. Hopefully, I can learn something from their action against graft," KPK chairman Taufiqurrahman said at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing here on Thursday.
Taufiqurrahman is part of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's entourage that is on a four-day visit to China. Susilo's main mission is to follow up the strategic partnership he signed with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Jakarta in April.
"It's amazing how China, which used to be notorious for its widespread corruption more than a decade ago, has turned into a country which has a tremendous economic growth as well as a good civil society," Taufiqurrahman said.
"How can investment come into our country if there's no political will to fight corruption and uphold the law? How can we develop infrastructure projects in the absence of this will?"
The KPK had yet to do enough, Taufiqurrahman said.
"But once the anticorruption drive gets into top gear, I expect the police, the Attorney General's Office, the courts, tax offices, customs and excise and local governments to follow suit."
Susilo told the Indonesian community who live in China on Wednesday that the country needed to a turn over a new leaf.
Taufiqurrahman, meanwhile, acknowledged that the desire to fight corruption in the country remained low and said much of what politicians and officials said about cracking down on graft was merely lip service.
To improve its competitiveness in the region, Indonesia needed to learn from neighboring countries like China, Malaysia and Hong Kong about how to fight corruption, he said.
"I have urged all regents, mayors, governors and ministers as well as director generals and judges to show (in actions) their strong determination to fight corruption," he said.
"People can not wait for another 20 years. We have been suffering for seven years from a economic crisis worsened by graft."
International research institutions have regularly ranked Indonesia as one of the world's most corrupt countries, with graft common in the bureaucracy, legislature, law enforcement and the judiciary.
Fighting corruption has been one of Susilo's top priorities since he assumed power last October and many state officials have already been jailed or investigated for graft.