We, Indonesian, always do the same mistake. After we do some good things, then we destroy the goodness that we have already achieved and we try to establish again. It always be again and again (Amien Sunaryadi, Former of Vice Chairman of KPK-Corruption Eradication Commission). This article was made based from UNODC’s Talk Series to spread the concern and awareness in the fight against corruption in Indonesia.
Learning from its history, Indonesia was among the first countries that fought against corruption (started 1955) but until today (2009) Indonesia is among countries that are not able to control its corruption yet. From this thought we can assume that something is going wrong on the process of combating corruption in Indonesia. Further more, is that something wrong with the system or with the Indonesian people whose can not stop themselves doing corruption?
The first effort in combating corruption was happened in 1955 when the operation led by DR. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo (Minister of Finance) to conduct investigation for departments and government ministries involving state accountants to find any corruption act or illicit matters occurred. Aimed to investigate the fund leakage occurred in every departments and ministries. This effort was one of cabinet programme priority at that time. Secondly, in 1955, led by the CPM (the Police Military, henceforth CPM), conducted by the Attorney General (Mr. Suprapto) trying to arrest Djody Gondokusumo (former Minister of Justice) because of receiving bribe. Unfortunately the Attorney General could not arrest this former of Minister of Justice, because Attorney General is under of Ministry of Justice. So, when the cabinet dismissed and the minister of justice finished; he would be arrested afterwards. According the investigation methodology, after the minister of justice arrested, CPM did searching and seizure the assets where these are the standard process of the beginning of investigation. Within years, this methodology of process had not been used by the government or officials in investigating or prosecuting corruptors, until KPK started using this methodology in nowadays. Many people think that KPK invent this methodology, whereas KPK just follow the procedure from the previous investigator.
The next effort was held in 1967 led by Sugiharto (Attorney General) to establish “the corruption eradication team”, but the problem at that time was difficult to differ between political impact or corruption impact. Interesting case occurred at the former President-Soeharto era (1970-1977). In 1970, Priatna Abdurassyid (the Deputy General of Attorney General) tried to investigate and to arrest some in-charged people involved in the Pertamina[1] case, knowing at that time many corruptions happened in Pertamina. This case was revoked because Soeharto did not believe that corruption happened in Pertamina. Fortunately by learning from the mistake, in 1976 Soeharto started to aware and to believe about what happened in Pertamina by giving order towards attorney general to investigate Ibnu Sutowo (The Head of Pertamina at that time). According to the investigation, in 1977 Ibnu Sutowo were trying to be issued to the court, but unfortunately this case was already passed seven years due to its period, so Ibnu Sutowo could not bring to the court.
Another interesting case happened in 1985, well-known as the Custom Case. At that time, Soeharto ordered to fire more than ten thousands of corrupt-custom officers home. During this period, the custom activities was conducted by a private international company named SGS (private company from Switzerland).
Regarding these things, we see that Indonesia has made some improvement and achievement, but the problem is why corruption still happened even getting worst? In the other hand, Indonesia had lost some momentums on combating the corruption.
First momentum occurred in 1957, where Indonesia at that time was controlled by the Emergency Military Law-regulations; war emergency situations happened at that time. Regulations established at this era were controlled by the military commander. Concerning the effort on combating corruption, there was procedure or mechanism on “Reversing the Onus of the Proof of Defendant”. It contains liability for person whose asset or wealth increased; must be examined to be able explaining his assets. After examined, the court will decide the assets belong to the state or the person. This regulation showed success on tracing the corruption assets at this era. Unfortunately, soon after passing this war emergency era, Indonesia back to its 1945 constitution as its main law and all of those military regulations revoked. To follow up regulations, the parliament established the new law-Law no. 24/ 1960 on corruption but the contents are weaker than the military regulations. This is the our first lost of momentum.
Next momentum is the organization reform. After Soeharto sending home more than ten thousands of custom officials, the government forgot to develop and to improve the Directorate General of Custom itself. So corruption still occurs and in 1955, this operation (organization reform) was held again and it becomes corrupted again, we got our momentum lost again.
We see that statistic of the effort on combating corruption is like a fluctuation. It goes up and it goes down and at the end the we can assume that this statistic does not increase significantly. Started from 1955, the effort on combating corruption had been conducted until today (2009) with the establishment of KPK. KPK is the most independent body on combating corruption that Indonesia have ever had but whether will KPK keep doing its work in the fight against corruption or not?
So regarding these explanations, Indonesian has to improve their way in combating corruption by learning from its history. We can conclude and recommending some points in improving the fight against corruption in Indonesia. In term of improving this matter we have to avoid doing some things and avoid repeating the same mistakes, in short of decisions of reduce achievements, such as not to include identified strong measures into the Bill, establish Legislations with weaker measures than those on the Bill, ignore Bills required to institutionalize operations that show successes, change clauses in regulations that show strong results, weaken authorities of operations that show successes, change or overhaul operations or systems that show successes, remove persons that show successes, appoint persons with different purposes, fail to reform government organization unit.
Learning from our history in combating corruption, there is a big question about the future of KPK (Corruption Eradication Commission), whether will it continue working its duty in the fight against corruption or will it be revoked? We hope by avoiding these things-stated in the conclusions and recommendations, Indonesia can improve its system in the fight against corruption. Do we believe that there is still hope? Yes we believe,. Start from ourself; Say NO to corruption!
*The writer is a consultant at United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime-Indonesia. He is also a lecturer staff for Banking Law class at Faculty of Law, University of Al Azhar and can be reached at paku.utama@unodc.org.
[1] Pertamina is a Government Enterprise in exploring oil in Indonesia.
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