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.