No courage?

No courage?

According to an announcement by Coordinating Minister for
Development Supervision and State Administrative Reforms Hartarto
Sastrosoenarto, acts of corruption, collusion and nepotism
committed over the past 32 years while president Soeharto was in
power have caused the state losses totaling Rp 22.85 trillion.
Apart from Soeharto, also involved were former government
officials, their children and cronies of the former first family.

If one were to measure these losses merely in terms of
material costs as expressed in figures, actually the damage is
not as fantastic as, say, the Rp 1.3 trillion loss caused,
single-handedly, by Eddy Tansil, who is now reported to be doing
quite well in China. The main damage, in a nonmaterial nature, is
the collapse of government officials' credibility in the public's
eyes. People seem to be starting to doubt the government's
sincerity in settling these cases, especially because so far only
figures are being released while no concrete steps are seen to be
taken to seriously tackle the problem. The legal procedures that
are pursued seem halfhearted and merely to appease the public's
anger. Also, the emphasis is still on the former first family
only, though corruption, collusion and nepotism exist in the
entire bureaucracy, including the current Cabinet.

People seem to be getting tired of mere statements, figures
and data. What we need at present are concrete, bolder and more
straightforward steps. (The government) must have the courage to
face the possibility that certain government officials and their
cronies may lose face. It must have the honesty to expose whoever
is involved, including those who are still in power.

The government is facing a difficult choice: whether it should
protect its officials against the possibility of losing face or
risk losing its credibility altogether.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta