Nepotism and transparency

Nepotism and transparency

On the front page of the Dec. 31 edition of The Jakarta Post
Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief strongly denied allegations of
financial impropriety saying "I'll be damned. I'm a tycoon..."
This declaration brings to mind a question: How do Indonesia's
public servants become wealthy tycoons?

Government salaries in Indonesia are notoriously low. How do
public officials accumulate enough wealth to take expensive
vacation trips, send wives overseas to shop and children overseas
to study, indulge in expensive hobbies like racing automobiles,
and develop hotels and factories? How can officials afford these
luxuries on unadorned salaries? And how do the offspring of high
government officials accumulate enough money to become tycoons
while still so young?

A few days ago, Abdurrahman Wahid and Loekman Soetrisno
decried the tendency of government officials to take an ostrich-
like posture in relation to unpleasant facts such as an impending
food shortage. Maybe there are other realities people do not want
to notice: the inexplicable accumulation of vast wealth by
government officials and their sons and daughters.

Sometimes young tycoons have unexceptional educations and few
obvious business talents or professional skills. What they often
do have is a close, convenient connection to those with the power
to bestow contracts, permits and favors. Isn't there a question
lurking beneath these realities?

Indonesia's financial recovery experts emphasize the need to
end nepotism. But names are never mentioned. Nepotism is written
about as if it were a formless, nameless evil somewhere out there
in cyberspace. Nepotism is not, however, a faceless concept.
Nepotism has a name: the names of persons favored because of a
family relationship. Whose names belong on Indonesia's nepotism
list?

In recent months, President Soeharto has found it necessary to
remind the public that he should not be made into a cult figure
and should not be placed above questioning. Nepotistic tendencies
may have arisen against the wishes of the President and his
children, because of the willingness of lesser officials and
businesspeople to ingratiate themselves by granting special
favors to the children from the time they were young.

Now when a major new project is announced and one of the
President's children becomes a partner, no questions are asked
openly, not even by the media. Unless the business arrangements
and sources of wealth of the President's children are disclosed,
they may be wrongly suspected of nepotism.

DONNA K. WOODWARD

Medan, North Sumatra