'Poor law enforcement' hampering corruption fight

JAKARTA (JP): Efforts to eradicate corruption are often hampered by poor law enforcement and poor coordination between officials, Vice President Try Sutrisno acknowledged yesterday.

The Vice President pointed out that discoveries of corruption by state supervisory agencies, even from the Supreme Audit Agency, were often neglected or not properly followed up.

"Law enforcers do not have the same perception of what must be done. They tend to act righteously," Try said in a plenary coordination meeting on bureaucracy supervision at Merdeka Selatan Palace yesterday.

Try presided over the three-hour meeting, which was attended by cabinet ministers, and inspector generals from each ministry. Coordinating the supervision of development programs has been one of Try's main tasks during his tenure as vice president.

The meeting was also used by the Vice President to say farewell to the ministers and high officials because he said he did not want to be reelected for another term next month.

Try told reporters after the meeting that a strong supervision system was critical to ensuring successful development.

Minister of Information R. Hartono said that during the 1997/1998 fiscal year, the Public Prosecutor's Office had handled 113 graft cases. He did not elaborate.

"It declined compared to 487 cases in the 1996/1997 fiscal year," Hartono said after the meeting.

The World Bank, in its annual report on Indonesia last year, said corruption was one of the major issues which should be addressed by the government.

State Minister of Administrative Reforms T.B. Silalahi has said that corruption remains an acute problem here although the country's laws are among the strictest in the world.

"Built-in supervision has not functioned optimally," Hartono said in a prepared statement.

Hartono also disclosed that the vice presidential office received many reports on power abuses by government officials from the public, but said that many of the complaints were not based on strong evidence.

"Proven public complaints or reports accounted for 31.55 percent (of the total reports), and inaccurate reports about 46.62 percent," Hartono said. (prb)