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