When you marry, you pay in RI

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.