War on corruption doubted
JAKARTA (JP): The World Bank and International Monetary Fund's (IMF) anticorruption pledge received a cool response from observers here over the weekend.
Well-known economist Kwik Kian Gie said in Indonesia's case the declaration was lip service rather than a concerted effort to put pressure on the government to eradicate corruption.
"It (the declaration) will become a laughing stock among elite political and business groups here," Kwik said. "They know the World Bank can do nothing because it has too many interests at stake in the country."
He said the campaign would have little impact because it failed to specify the targeted countries.
Both the IMF and World Bank announced, during a meeting in Hong Kong on Friday, they were escalating the worldwide war on corruption.
World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn warned that corruption would be directly taken into account in lending decisions.
The two multilateral fund lending groups hold more than US$300 billion in lending assets.
Indonesia is one of the World Bank's largest borrowers and the bank is the nation's second largest donor after Japan. The World Bank committed itself to giving $1.5 billion to the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) during its annual meeting in Tokyo last July.
Kwik said the World Bank would not apply tough measures to Indonesia because it risked losing its lending assets.
"What can they (IMF and the World Bank) do with Indonesia, which is called one of the world's most corrupt countries?"
In April, a Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) survey placed Indonesia on the top of a list of Asia's most corrupt countries.
An American professor of political economy, Jeffrey A. Winters, said in July that about one third of the World Bank's loans to Indonesia since 1965 had been leaked and were "unaccounted for".
But the World Bank's Vice President for East Asia and the Pacific, Jean-Michel Severino, said Winters' accusations were "demonstrably untrue". Minister of National Development Planning Ginandjar Kartasasmita dismissed the allegations as "groundless".
Separately, Faisal Basri from the University of Indonesia said the anticorruption declaration may have been triggered by a collective awareness.
He said the campaign could be accelerated by urges from American businessmen who feel that corruption hinders fair competition in business.
"Corruption has become a global phenomenon and an international code of conduct to cope with it is needed."
Yesterday, House of Representatives legislator Theo Sambuaga joined the debate, asking both the IMF and World Bank not to apply their own standards on corruption or dictate anticorruption measures to a country.
"Indonesia has long enacted and implemented strict anticorruption measures. So the IMF and the World Bank's declaration is not relevant here," Theo, from Commission I for political and foreign affairs, said.
The Indonesian government would consistently allow no room for graft, without having to wait for an outsider's demand or pressure, he said.
Rather than launching a late anticorruption campaign, the two international organizations should set up mechanisms to prevent currency crisis in the future, he said. (10/amd)