On clean governance

On clean governance

While making every effort to reestablish public and
international trust in the government to climb out of our
devastating economic crisis, state officials must also pay
attention to increasing public demands for clean governance. This
call is no less urgent than other public complaints because
corruption, which has long reached alarming proportions, has also
worsened the ever-widening social gap.

In an apparent effort to assuage the public, President
Soeharto instructed all cabinet ministers Tuesday to report to
him their personal wealth and that of their spouses. Provincial
governors are obliged to report their wealth as well. The
coordinating minister for development supervision and state
administrative reform will hold all of the personal asset
reports.

The President seems to have no intention of making the wealth
of his high-ranking officials public, possibly for reasons of
privacy. But the government has guaranteed that in case a
minister is charged with corruption, authorities can reference
the minister's registered personal assets.

At the same meeting, the President also ordered the ministers
to donate their first year's salaries to poverty-alleviation
programs. Many people have expressed sympathy for the ministers
saying the officials will have to live modestly if obliged to
donate their entire salaries. But people who have watched TV
interviews with the newly installed ministers in their luxury
homes tend to conclude that the ministers' lifestyles will not be
overly affected because they already live affluently.

So we believe the focus should be placed on the presidential
instruction for ministers to report their personal assets. This
order is, in fact, nothing new in the history of our republic.
There have been such regulations before on top of periodical
anti-graft campaigns bearing various grandiose code names.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these past regulations and
campaigns have impressed few people.

Indonesians have become quite well-informed of anti-graft
drives in some other developing countries, where officials'
assets are publicly announced giving the people a sense of
ownership in the fight to clean up their government. Authorities
in some of these countries also work on public tips concerning
corrupt practices.

Indonesians have a right to be involved in the fight against
corruption because unethical practices by state officials are
nothing less than a breach of the people's trust.

Corrupt officials here seem to enrich themselves with
impunity, making no effort to hide their illegal practices. Many
actually flaunt their ill-gotten affluence. These officials seem
to think that they are just a small segment in a vicious cycle
which has become a part of our national culture.

Many reports place our government as the most corrupt in Asia,
while the foreign media has repeatedly printed figures on the
huge wealth of certain high-ranking officials and their cronies
here. The authorities have never denied the charges in a
convincing manner, much less sue the media companies. Instead,
the government repeatedly defends itself with the same old
cliche, saying that this country has strong judicial mechanisms
to fight corruption.

The statement, of course, bears some truth. We do have
comprehensive laws to combat corruption. But while building a
system is one thing, enforcing it is another. The government
needs to focus on creating more effective ways to enforce the
system. So far, even the government's internal audit agency has
repeatedly complained that many ministries have been reluctant to
follow up on corruption findings with necessary actions. In the
end, all of this will depend on the government's political will.