By Andi Abdussalam
Jakarta, Dec 10 (ANTARA) - Since it launched an anti-graft movement in 2004, the Indonesian government has succeeded in safeguarding at least Rp9.3 trillion in state money.
Of the amount, about Rp5.4 trillion in the state assets have been recovered and have become legally binding based on court verdicts.
The success to recover corrupted state assets follows the establishment of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in 2004.
"Indonesia as a country ruled by law has placed itself in the forefront of the fight against corruption. On December 9, 2004, the government, through Presidential Instruction No 5/2004, ordered the entire United Indonesia cabinet to accelerate corruption eradication efforts," Attorney General Hendarman Supandji said on the occasion of the observance of the World Anti-Corruption Day on Tuesday.
Then, in 2005, a corruption eradication coordination team was set up as a follow up to the issuance of Presidential Instruction No.5/2004. "Within a period of three years (2005-2007), the team was able to settle 280 corruption cases and recover a total of Rp3,95 trillion worth of state assets," he said.
Meanwhile, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, citing data from the Attorney General's Office, in the period 2004-November 2008, said that state assets and money saved from corruption cases totaled Rp859,762,538,773 through the Police, Rp8,001,138,805,489.17 through the prosecutor's offices, and Rp476,456,872,901 through the Corruption Eradication Commission.
State money that has been recovered based on court verdicts that had become legally binding totals Rp4,927,277,318,110.39 from cases handled by public prosecutor's offices and Rp476,456,872,901 from cases solved by the KPK.
According to the president, corruption in all its manifestations directly and indirectly harms the public interest and creates national problems that eventually damage the country's image.
The government is very serious about eradicating corruption and this is why it has issued Presidential Instruction No 5/2004 on acceleration of corruption eradication.
"By issuing the Presidential Instruction, we want to take concrete steps to fight corruption" President Yudhoyono said.
The head of state said corruption was a bad practice because it caused national assets and money to go down the drain, whereas they could actually be used to make the people prosperous.
Therefore, he called on law enforcers and other government authorities to watch eight government sectors prone to corruption and collusion. The eight sectors included the supply of goods and services, tax and excise, recruitment of civil servants and private employees.
The government in its efforts to prevent corruption has also applied an internal supervision system at governmental departments. In order to intensify the supervision, the KPK, however, is proposing a change in the system.
Corruption Eradication Commission chief Antasari Azhar said he was proposing to entrust supervision of government departments' or agencies' internal finances to personnel outside the departments or agencies concerned.
"Such internal supervisory positions as inspector general, or units like regional supervisory boards (Bawasda), internal supervision teams should be filled by personnel who do not belong to the departments or agencies concerned," he said.
The officials performing the departments' or agencies' internal supervision could be attached to a certain ministry to ensure more effective and objective supervision, he said
"The change is necessary to avoid a kind of conflict of interest," Azhar told the press on the sidelines of a function to observe World Anti-Corruption Day.
He said a successful supervision system was applied by China where supervision teams were grouped in a ministry like Indonesia's administrative reform ministry.
Meanwhile, Administrative Reform Minister Taufik Effendi admitted on the same occasion that there were many constraints in supervision performed by people who belonged to the government department or agency involved. Such insiders usually were reluctant to carry out their supervisory functions objectively.
In an effort to stay objective and help make the anti-graft drive a success, the governors of most of Indonesia's provinces pledged on Tuesday they would never commit any corruption. The written pledge was red by KPK Chairman Antasari Azhar.
In the written pledge, the governors stated that corruption was an extraordinary crime that violates the people's rights and was damaging the life of and hurting the people.
"Today, we, as representatives of the people of Indonesia, state we will never commit corruption," they said in their declaration.
The participation of the public, particularly students, in supervising officials so that they would not commit corruption is also very important. In this case rector of Paramadina University Anies Baswedan Phd appealed to all universities in Indonesia to require their students to take a lecture on anti-corruption.
"If only half of 4.1 million university students in Indonesia take an anti-corruption lecture I am convinced the rank of anti-corruption campaigners will increase significantly," he said in a statement.
Anies said the optimism that the nation was able to fight corruption should be bequeathed to the younger generation.
"Universities have a big role to play in developing this stance. We must not be influenced by the notion that corruption cannot be eradicated. That is not true," he said. (T.A014/A/HNG/A/S012) 10-12-2008 22:28:19
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