When you marry, you pay in RI

Dyaharini Nurhapsari and Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Corruption does not only affect people looking for visas or drivers' licenses, but also those tying the knot.

Newly married couple Jhony and Leonny (not their real names) recalled how difficult it was to deal with officials from the Religious Affairs Office (KUA) in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta. KUA is an agency under the auspices of the Ministry or Religious Affairs.

By law, Muslim couples must register their weddings with KUA officials. The wedding can be held either at the office, home or mosque with the presence of a KUA official who later issues the buku nikah (wedding document).

The official rate for processing the wedding document is Rp 85,000 (US$9). However, the couple said they were asked for an additional Rp 500,000 for the document.

"They said the extra fee was a 'donation'," said Jhony, who works for a multinational company in Jakarta.

Jhony said he had heard these extra fees could reach Rp 1 million. When a KUA office was faced with many orders from couples who wanted to marry on the same day, a marriage license "bidding war" could result, with the office sending clerics to witness the marriages of the highest payers, he said.

As dealing with KUA was always time consuming and costly, many Muslim couples prefer to use the service of brokers to arrange their marriages.

Another newly married couple recalled similar difficulties they faced getting their compulsory family papers arranged at the local subdistrict office. The office is supposed to issue two copies of the family papers, one which is held by the family while another is stored at the office.

Herman, 28, a businessman, recalled how difficult it was to process the papers and identification cards for his wife, who is of Chinese descent.

"There is still discrimination here. Indonesians of Chinese descent can still not obtain identification cards as easily as ethnic Indonesians," he said.

Subdistrict officials often ask Chinese-Indonesians to pay 10 times higher than the official fee of Rp 10,000 for an ID card.

Herman ended up using the service of brokers, or calo, to process the documents.

At present, there are hundreds of broker service firms in the capital who see business opportunities in the corrupt bureaucracy.

The brokers, who usually have connections with officials at the government offices, generally share their fees with the public servants who handle the document processing.