Mixed results in govt's anticorruption campaign

Mixed results in govt's anticorruption campaign

Reiner S., The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A massive clean-up of the country, seen by most Indonesians as
deeply corrupt after decades of authoritarian rule, has become a
top priority of the country's first directly elected president.
So far Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's results have been mixed; and
there are worrying signs that corrupt forces are fighting back --
and are equally as aggressive.

When the antigraft court delivered in April its first verdict by
sending then Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh to ten years in prison
for embezzling more than a third of the Rp 12.6 billion in state
funds for the purchase of a Russian-made helicopter, there was
fresh optimism that authorities were finally serious in tackling
the rampant corruption, which has become a major obstacle to
luring badly needed investment.

In a further boost to Susilo's antigraft campaign, law
enforcement institutions shocked some of the country's erstwhile
"untouchables" by unveiling more high-profile graft cases and
declaring several greedy state officials, politicians and
businesspeople graft suspects. Many others face investigation.
The Cipinang penitentiary in East Jakarta, where four high-
profile convicts, including former chief of the state logistics
agency (Bulog) Beddu Amang, former minister of trade and industry
Rahardi Ramelan, business tycoon Probosutedjo (who is also the
half-brother of former authoritarian president Soeharto), and
Puteh are now in detention for corruption, may soon have to be
refurbished to accommodate other top corruption convicts.

But despite some successful cases, it remains open to question
whether Susilo, who has been criticized for his often
indecisiveness over a number of crucial issues, will succeed in
rooting out corruption, which is deeply entrenched in Indonesian
society.

According to Transparency International's 2005 Corruption
Perception Index, out of 159 countries surveyed, Indonesia is
categorized as the sixth most corrupt country in the world with a
score of 2.2, a slight improvement from last year's fifth
position and a score of 2.0, but still on par with war-ravaged
Iraq.

"In terms of fighting terrorism, the achievements are quite good.
But in terms of fighting corruption, (the government) is
impotent," said Akil Mochtar, a member of the House of
Representatives from the Golkar Party, which officially supports
the current administration, during a recent seminar.

The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), an independent graft
watchdog, is also starting to question the effectiveness of the
antigraft campaign led by Susilo, whose relatively clean image
and a strong determination to fight corrupt forces during the
presidential campaign had won him the election last year. The
results are very minimal, although we have to acknowledge that
rooting out corruption is not an easy task," said ICW coordinator
Teten Masduki, who won the prestigious 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award
for his role in helping to curb graft in this country.

Some say that natural and disease-related disasters plaguing the
country this year may have somewhat distracted the antigraft
drive. But others have pointed out that the aggressive campaign
launched by Susilo (with more than 40 speeches delivered in
various occasions this year) seems to have had just a slight
response from bureaucrats, who have started to regain their old
patronage role over the business sector after several years of a
consolidation process following the downfall of Soeharto in 1998.

Businesspeople are still complaining about the corruption they
have to face at all levels of government. One example, which
could be seen as microcosm for the bureaucracy, is that the
Jakarta driver's license departments still require bribes to
expedite applications.

"The (President's) vision has not been effectively translated
into concrete measures (by his subordinates)," said chairman of
the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Taufiqurrahman Ruki,
pointing out the absence of credible measures to boost governance
at ministries, state/provincial-owned companies and regional
administrations.

Despite a slow-start in 2004, the KPK, whose special prosecutors
can investigate alleged misconduct by state officials involving
possible losses of more than Rp 1 billion to the state, and have
wide-ranging power, have started to unveil and resolve a few high
profile graft cases including the Puteh case and the corruption
by top officials of the General Elections Commission (KPU) during
the implementation of last year's successful elections. It is
now collecting evidence to handle the alleged bribery in the
judicial system, which may implicate Supreme Court Chief Justice
Bagir Manan. The KPK is facing tough challenges in investigating
this case as evidenced by the initial rejection by Bagir to the
summonses made by the commission. He later agreed to be
questioned at his own office following intervention from the
President.

The inter-departmental, anticorruption team set up by the
President himself in a bid to clean up the country, has so far
been a little slow in acting. From a target to resolve 16 graft
cases at ministries and state-owned companies, the team has so
far only managed to start to uncover the abuse of haj pilgrimage
funds worth Rp 700 billion by officials at the Ministry of
Religious Affairs.

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has also had a dismal
performance. The office claims to have resolved a total of 450
graft cases in the first 10 months of the year, while 15 were
suspended due to lack of evidence. But the cases, mostly in
regional administrations, are considered petty corruption, with
total combined losses to the state of approximately Rp 19
million. It has also resolved the suspicious loan cases at the
giant state-controlled Bank Mandiri.

These developments have been a disappointment, ICW's Teten said,
pointing out to the huge resources at the AGO's disposal -- a
total of 6,000 prosecutors in 350 prosecutors office across the
nation.

"Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh is a good person, but he
seems to have failed to come up with credible, concrete measures
to fight corruption," said one businessman who asked for
anonymity. When Susilo appointed the former Supreme Court
justice as Attorney General last year, there was a lot of hope
among the public that he could help accelerate efforts to root
out the endemic corruption in the country.

The only positive achievement so far of the AGO is that the
institution no longer seems to have as strong an appetite to
freeze high-profile graft cases, ICW said. A total of 43 cases
were dropped during the era of previous attorney general MA
Rahman.

But there have been strong calls from the public for the AGO to
also resolve the massive theft of the state-sponsored bank
bailout funds by bankers in the wake of the late 1990s financial
crisis, a demand that insiders say is against the wishes of
Susilo, who seems to want to move ahead by focusing on
eradicating ongoing corruption.

Against this backdrop, there are worrying signs that corrupt
forces are fighting back through various means, including
bribery, political blackmailing and even physical attacks.

One recent example, is the naming of Khairiansyah Salman, a
whistle blower in the KPU corruption case, as a suspect in the
haj pilgrimage funds graft case for allegedly receiving Rp 10
million of the funds when conducting an audit at the Ministry of
Religious Affairs.

Khairiansyah, a former auditor at the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK),
was named a suspect on Nov. 21, several days after he won the
internationally prestigious Integrity Award from Transparency
International for his role in uncovering the KPU case. The award
was supposed to encourage other people to become whistle blowers
and help the KPK uncover graft cases.

The move by the Jakarta High Prosecutors Office to name him a
suspect (while in fact other high-profile figures including
senior politicians who have illegally enjoyed a greater amount of
the religious ministry funds have not even been questioned) has
irritated antigraft activists as it would discourage other would-
be whistle blowers for fear they could end up like Khairiansyah.

Executive Director of the Indonesian Transparency Society, Agung
Hendarto, said that the move against Khairiansyah was part of a
grand scenario launched by certain forces to crush the current
anticorruption campaign. "This is a drastic setback. We must be
vigilant in the years to come. If the anticorruption program is
only symbolic in nature, merely aimed at maintaining popularity,
but devoid of a true spirit to create good governance, it will
not work. If it is not designed as a massive national movement to
mobilize all government resources, the public and the business
sector, then there may not be significant progress from what has
been achieved now," warned ICW's Teten.