Most Corrupt Institutions

Jakarta Post Editorial 04012208

The Findings of an integrity survey conducted by the Corruption Eradication

Commission (KPK) in 30 public institutions and state companies providing public
services between last August and October in Greater Jakarta simply validated the
international perception of Indonesia's government as one of the most corrupt in
the world.

Berlin-based Transparency International (TI)

last year ranked the Indonesian government 143rd out of 179 countries surveyed for
its annual Corruption Perception Index with a score of 2,3 on a scale of one to
ten, even lower than Vanuatu, Pakistan and Philippines.

The average score gained by government offices and state companies in the KPK
survey was only 5.33, which KPK said was worse than the integrity levels of public
sectors in most other countries.

The survey ranked the civil service administration board with the highest
integrity but it scored only 6.51 on a scale of zero to ten, while the worst
institution was the justice and human rights ministry (immigration and the
administration of notaries public) with 4.15 and the state land agency and land
transportation administration (road worthiness certification) with 4.09 and 3.45
respectively.

The KPK integrity index further confirmed the findings of similar surveys
conducted by other national institutions such as the Economic and Social Research
Institute of the University of Indonesia which ranked the National Police, Custom
Service, Tax Office, Justice sector (court)
as the most corrupt public institutions.

It was a surprise though that the tax office

and customs service scored slightly higher than the average in the KPK survey. But
since we did not receive detailed data on the composition of the respondents (how
many of them are business executives), it was difficult to ascertain whether the
better perception was generated by more efficient and cleaner services or if it
was because very few of the respondents had ever dealt with the two public
institutions.

The KPK integrity survey, similar to the TI annual corruption perception index,
could serve as a good tool for building up public opinion pressures against all
kinds of corruption.

It is nice to know the KPK will conduct the integrity survey annually, covering
100 government institutions and state companies.

The KPK integrity survey could also become an effective tool for policy makers if
the commission continues to improve the methodology of its studies with a wide
variety of innovative approaches to gather a wide variety of different indicators
of corrupt practices both subjective and objective. The survey is important to
monitor results on the ground, assess the concrete reality of corruption and
develop anticorruption programs.

Public opinion pressures, in addition to strong law enforcement, should be an

integrated part of a vigorous anti-corruption campaign, especially because the
general public has a high tolerance for corruption. The KPK survey, for example,
discovered that the majority of the 3,611 respondents considered rewards for
public officials acceptable and that 20 per cent of them admitted offering tips,
gifts and rewards with the highest reward by a respondent recorded at IDR 150
million (US$ 16,500).

These are unhappy facts. Most within the community, the government and business
community remain entrenched in a way of life that accepts corruption as a cost of
doing business.

Since corruption usually leaves no paper trail, perceptions of corruption based on

individual's actual experiences are sometimes the best and only information we
have. Perceptions also matter directly, when citizens view the courts and police
as corrupt, they will not want to use their services, regardless of their
'objective'.

Similarly, firms will pay less taxes if they believe that they will be wasted by
corruption and they will invest less in their country. Further, while social norms
might affect what people view as corruption, in practice such cultural bias in
perceptions does not appear to be substantial.

Moreover, tracking event quite general perceptions on corruption can also be a

useful way, even if not in itself, of monitoring anti-corruption programs. In
fact, governments in many countries rely on polling data to set policy priorities
and track their progress.

Corruption has been cited by almost all international and domestic surveys as a
significant impediment to economic growth and political stability. Hence the
government and the general public should turn more attention to fighting this
disease.

There should be tougher approaches to bringing corrupt officials to justice,

efforts to end selectivity in investigations and prosecutions and further civil
service reforms to attract capable, responsible people who can understand and
enforce the laws.