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.