Jakarta – In another move to tighten the screws on those involved in white-collar corruption, the country's capital market watchdog, Bapepam-LK, threatened Tuesday to freeze all the dirty money invested in the country's capital markets.
"We've seen many indications of money laundering recently through financial institutions and the capital market," Fuad Rahmany, the chairman of the Capital Market and Financial Institutions Supervisory Agency (Bapepam-LK), said after signing a memorandum of understanding Tuesday with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
He said the envisaged collaboration would allow the two institutions to share and exchange information, engage in personnel exchanges and training, update information on the assets of government officials, and coordinate the performance of their respective institutions.
There are currently 343 companies traded on the stock exchange. Bapepam-LK's data on non-bank financial institutions shows that the country has 157 insurance companies with total assets of Rp 141 trillion (US$15.4 billion), 301 pension funds with total assets of Rp 66.9 trillion, 216 financial institutions with total assets of Rp 97.5 trillion and 53 venture capital firms with 15,357 partners and total assets of Rp 2.3 trillion.
The Finance Ministry's inspector general, Permana Agung, who also attended the event, said the government would be determined to seriously tackle corruption in the financial sector. "Corruption is the principal factor that caused the economic crisis in this country," he noted.
He said that Transparency International (TI), whose latest report on corruption in 163 countries, put Indonesia in 134th place in terms of tackling corruption, with a corruption perception index of 2.4. "Compared with other ASEAN countries, Indonesia is better than Myanmar, which is listed in 162nd place and Cambodia at 152nd. Above Indonesia comes the Philippines in 126th place, Vietnam at 118th, Timor Leste at 117th, Thailand at 65th, Malaysia at 44th and Singapore at 5th," he noted.
He further said that the Finance Ministry had established an Investigation Inspectorate (IBI), which would function to investigate corruption cases. "This IBI conduct the investigations, not the audits. It has the power to investigate," he told reporters.
In line with the government's stated determination to eradicate corruption, the KPK has previously signed memorandums of understanding with Bank Indonesia with a view to cooperation in preventing and tackling corruption in the banking sector.
Signed by Bank Indonesia Governor Burhanuddin Abdullah and KPK Director Taufiequrrachman Ruki, the MOU envisages the establishment of an integrated "bank-customer assessment center" and programs to improve the capacity of personnel in the two institutions in handling banking-sector corruption cases.
BI previously signed memorandums of understanding with the Attorney General's Office, the National Police and the country's anti-money laundering watchdog, the Financial Transactions Reporting and Analysis Center (PPATK), with a view to preventing banking sector crimes.
The KPK recently also signed an agreement for such cooperation with the PPATK.