Pressure on the rupiah

Pressure on the rupiah

The presently diminishing value of the rupiah is not due only
to monetary and market factors. Rather, it is the question of the
credibility of some of our highly placed government officials
that is most responsible for causing the value of our currency to
fall against the United States dollar.

The matter of transparency with regard to the release of the
audit executed by PricewaterhouseCoopers and delivered to the
State Audit Board is, in this respect, vital to rehabilitate the
credibility of the Habibie administration in the eyes of the
public, both at home and abroad. We therefore find it difficult
to understand the indifference shown by our government leaders,
even though our national economy is threatened with destruction.
This is one of the reasons why Indonesia's economy has sunk so
much deeper than those of Thailand and Korea: It is because the
public, here and abroad, has lost its trust in our leaders.

The rupiah's value is now dependent on the public's trust. The
more the public trusts this country's leaders, the higher the
value of the rupiah against the dollar is likely to be. The more
the government is willing to be transparent and disclose what is
behind the various current political and economic scandals, the
more the world will be ready to trust us and the quicker our
economy will be revived.

-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta