National Ombudsman supervises tax, customs services

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has assigned the National Ombudsman Commission to supervise the tax and customs offices, and help clean up the two institutions from corrupt practices.

Minister of Finance Boediono signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday with the commission.

The move is part of a reform program required by the International Monetary Fund.

But chairman of the National Economic Recovery Committee (KPEN) Sofjan Wanandi doubted the effectiveness of this commission in supervising the work of the directorate general of taxation and the directorate general of customs and excise due to its lack of technical expertise in the two areas.

"The commission doesn't have any technical knowledge on taxation and customs," he said.

He suspected that the appointment of the National Ombudsman Commission was a mere attempt to help polish the tarnished image of the corrupt-infested tax and customs offices.

"This is just an attempt to improve their image, to show to the public that they are currently undergoing reform program. They chose the commission since they knew that it's toothless," said Sofjan.

Chairman of the commission, Antonius Sujata, dismissed such skepticism.

"Our task is to investigate any report of misconduct made by officials at the tax and customs offices. If the two offices refuse to follow up our investigation results then we will report them directly to the minister of finance," he said.

Another task is to mediate disputes between taxpayers and tax officials before the cases are brought to the tax court, and to follow up complaints filed by taxpayers on any misconduct made by tax officials.

According to the MoU, the commission will establish a special task force under the commission structure to supervise the taxation and customs office.

Currently, personnel for the task force has yet to be selected.

"In near time, we will recruit two experts whose jobs are to give input and knowledge on the subjects (tax and customs). We will also recruit personnel to be deployed to the field for investigation," said Antonius, who is a former senior state prosecutor.

The National Ombudsman Commission is a social and political watchdog formed in 2000 with the purpose of ensuring the upholding of the law by the government, courts and law enforcers.

Businesses had earlier urged the government to set up a separate commission for the tax and customs offices. Among the names recommended to lead the commission were leading independent economists Faisal Basri and Djisman Simanjuntak.

But Sofjan said that the government turned down the proposal because the above figures had been too critical of the government.