NU, Muhammadiyah renew antigraft vow
NU, Muhammadiyah renew antigraft vow
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The country's two largest Islamic organizations renewed their
commitment on Wednesday to push for a movement against endemic
corruption in the predominantly Muslim country.
With the renewed commitment, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and
Muhammadiyah will start to strengthen their accountability by
improving audit management, establishing good governance
guidelines and ensuring transparency in their reports.
"We have sent letters to our cadres serving in corruption-
prone positions to avoid bad practices and we have declared that
NU will not stand by them if they are proven to be corrupt," NU
chairman Hasyim Muzadi said during Wednesday's ceremony to sign
the pledge.
The two organizations first declared an antigraft commitment
in October 2003 along with non-governmental organization
Partnership for Governance Reform, but the progress has been slow
partly due to "internal leadership distortions" within the
Islamic groups.
"It will take time to build up awareness about this movement
among their members," Partnership program manager M. Ichsan
Nurbudi said.
"The first two years were used to prepare the basic principles
for the movement."
Muhammadiyah, for its part, proposed a similar basic program
aimed at developing an interpretation of Islamic law, which would
serve as the theological base to prevent and stop corruption.
"We will also establish monitoring centers in our society to
help us gather information on corruption, report it to the
relevant authorities and lend moral support for legal action
taken against such cases," Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii
Maarif said.
Both NU and Muhammadiyah, which have 80 million members
between them, vowed to start the anticorruption campaign from
within their respective organizations.
They will continue with the movement to help eradicate
corruption in the nation, which has been often ranked among the
most corrupt countries in the world.
"We will help educate the public, both through our
organizations and through cultural and religious discussions on
the massive destructive effects of corruption," Hasyim said.
He explained that the first priority would be to shift the
dominant public perception of corruption as being something
simple, such as stealing or bribery, to involve other forms as
well, including dishonesty in the use of time.
"Giving people information on the devastating impacts of
corruption will help encourage the public to shun such
practices," he said.
Hasyim said NU would promote a hidup halal, kerja keras
(honest life, hard work) campaign through all means at its
disposal, ranging from dakwah (religious preaching) to forming
pressure groups.
The 40 million-strong organization is currently running pilot
projects on both internal and external anticorruption campaigns
in East Java and West Java, he said without elaborating.
"NU and Muhammadiyah have a number of economic activities and
strive to attain a prosperous society, and thus should promote
role models on how to develop good governance internally,"
Partnership executive director H.S. Dillon said.
He said his organization would provide technical assistance,
experts and monitoring to help the two Muslim organizations run
their programs.
Another Partnership activist Bambang Widjojanto said that with
their huge membership, NU and Muhammadiyah were expected to be
able to end the prevalent permissive attitude toward corruption.
"And by conducting good governance, the two organizations will
set a good example for the autonomous groups affiliated to them
to follow suit," Bambang added.(003)