Muladi pledges antigraft body will be professional

Muladi pledges antigraft body will be professional

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Justice Muladi said on Monday all
the members of the planned anticorruption commission would be
professionals.

Muladi said at the House of Representatives the commission, an
idea proposed last week by members of the Golkar faction in the
House, would consist of, among others, prosecutors, police
officers and legal experts.

Muladi asked the public not to be suspicious of the
government's plan to set up the commission, saying the sole
purpose behind the commission was to establish clean governance.

"The establishment of the Corruption Alleviation Commission is
not strange. Other countries, Malaysia and Hong Kong for example,
have formed similar bodies," Muladi said after attending the
House's deliberations on an antigraft bill.

In Hong Kong, the anticorruption commission has the right to
investigate corruption cases, while in Malaysia the commission
has the right to press charges against those accused of
corruption.

"The commission will certainly be independent ... and its
membership will comprise professionals and intellectuals," Muladi
said.

The minister, however, said the plan could be realized only
two years after a bill on the establishment of the commission was
passed into law.

"We need two years to socialize the new law and form the
commission," Muladi said.

The House of Representatives endorsed a bill on clean
governance in April, titled State Administrators Who Are Free
from Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism. The bill obliges all
government officials, including the president, ministers and
managers of state-owned enterprises, to declare their assets when
they begin and end their tenures with the state.

President B.J. Habibie has formally enacted the bill into law.

The law mandates the president, as head of state, chair a
permanent commission of examiners to oversee state officials in
executive, legislative and judicatory positions, and officials
assigned to state companies.

The commission also has the power to audit state officials
holding office, as long as the audit is not for investigative
purposes.

The government has pledged to issue four government
regulations and one presidential decree to accelerate the
implementation of the law.

The House is still deliberating an antigraft bill which will
update Anticorruption Law No.3/1973.

It is not clear whether the antigraft bill will serve as the
legal basis for the establishment of the anticorruption
commission. (prb)