Local government corruption running rampant, says ICW

Local government corruption running rampant, says ICW

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Corruption is widespread throughout the country's 32 provinces,
with the tsunami-devastated Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province
being among the worst offenders, an anticorruption watchdog has
revealed.

Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said in its year-end report
on Tuesday that the much-vaunted local autonomy program, which
was designed to ensure a greater say for local government
jurisdictions in running their own affairs, had been hijacked by
local administration big-wigs to enable them to feather their own
nests.

Between January and December last year, 432 corruption cases
had been uncovered in the 32 provinces, which cost the state an
estimated Rp 5.3 trillion (US$580 million), it said.

Four provinces in Java -- Jakarta, East Java, Central Java and
West Java -- registered a total of 179 corruption cases.

Aceh, which was shattered by a Dec. 26 undersea earthquake and
a subsequent tidal wave, was ranked sixth with 21 cases of
corruption, while South Sumatra was one place ahead of it on the
roll of shame.

A lack of legal certainty due to the imposition of martial law
and the subsequent state of emergency there prior to the calamity
had contributed to the increase in corruption.

Huge sums of money were poured into the province to finance a
massive military operation against the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

In the wake of the tsunami, further large amounts of money
have being earmarked for the province by the international
community and the Indonesian government for relief operations and
subsequent reconstruction programs.

The newly-established province of Gorontalo registered only
one case of graft.

"The figures, however, are merely the tip of an iceberg of
increasing corruption, especially in provinces outside Java,
where civil society and non-governmental organizations don't have
enough resources to uncover corruption cases," the ICW report
said.

The absence of a credible media also hindered the uncovering
of corruption cases.

The ICW based its conclusions on media reports and information
given by concerned citizens.

Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) said in its
latest report that out of 146 countries surveyed, Indonesia was
the fifth most corrupt nation after Angola, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Georgia.

The ICW's report found that members of local political elites
-- be they governors, regents/mayors or councillors -- were the
most culpable in stealing money from the public.

"Local councillors were found to be involved in 124 cases of
corruption while local leaders were implicated in 83 cases of
graft," it said.

ICW spokesman Adnan Topan Husodo said that unbridled
corruption at the local level was the result of relaxed oversight
by the central government since the introduction of the Local
Autonomy Law in 2001.

"The central government has failed to keep corruption in check
following the rolling out of local autonomy," he said.