The wealth of civil servants

The wealth of civil servants

For all its shortcomings, the recent publication by the Public
Servants' Wealth Audit Commission of the personal wealth owned by
President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President Megawati
Soekarnoputri must be commended as a first step in the right
direction. At the very least, for the first time in the country's
56 year history, a new measure lets Indonesians see some real
substance to the government's repeated declaration that the
eradication of corruption will be foremost on its agenda.

The problem is not that governments in Jakarta did not realize
the destructive power of corruption. Successive governments, from
the Sukarno administration in the 1950s to Soeharto's New Order
government from the 1970s to May 1998, and the B.J. Habibie
interim administration in 1998-1999 pledged to cut back the
rapidly growing tentacles of corruption in government. Soeharto
even named the highly respected former vice president Mohammad
Hatta -- a man of principle known for his impeccable honesty --
to lead an anticorruption commission which he set up during his
32-year rule.

All to no avail. Corruption continued to thrive, fed in many
instances by a government system that relied on handing out
favors and privileges to remain in power. But it was not until
the Asian economic crisis hit in 1997 and major businesses were
unable to repay their often badly utilized offshore debts that
Indonesians became fully aware of the real extent of the
corruption cancer in their country. Thus the eradication of
corruption became a major slogan of the reform movement of the
late 1990s.

Established last year by government decree dated 1999, the
commission has since sent out some 7,000 forms to be filled in by
state officials and legislators but so far it has received only
300 -- which could be an indication of the difficulty the
recipients are having in completing all 30 pages of the document,
rather than an unwillingness to declare their wealth honestly.
After all, certain penalties are involved in a dishonest
declaration of wealth.

Still, some doubts do exist regarding certain points in the
wealth declarations that have already come in. For instance,
questions have arisen concerning half of President Abdurrahman
Wahid's declared wealth totaling a "mere" Rp. 3.5 billion. Half
of that wealth -- or Rp 1.7 billion -- consists of "donations"
received in the 1999-2000 period, when he was already President.
Another asset that appears to have remained undeclared involves
real estate in Jakarta's elite Menteng area. Similarly, Vice
President Megawati has left a blue Volkswagen new model "Beetle"
estimated to be worth almost half a billion rupiah undeclared.

No doubt these oversights can and will be logically explained.
Megawati, after all, is often publicly seen driving her blue
Beetle, which appears to be her favorite car, and possession of
which is therefore no secret. These cases, however, bring to
light the importance of having the wealth declarations properly
audited. Penalties for dishonest declaration must be strictly
imposed. These regulations, together with a reversal of the
burden of proof for corruption cases, could in time effectively
put an end to corruption in this country.

In any case, President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President
Megawati Soekarnoputri deserve to be commended for having set an
example by being the first to comply with the new regulations.
Given that of the 7,000 forms only 300 have so far been returned
to the commission, the importance of their example is not to be
underestimated.