Armando Siahaan – Whether it's because of negligence or a malicious intent to hide something, the failure of more than a hundred lawmakers to comply with the law and submit their personal wealth reports is unacceptable, antigraft activists said on Friday.
Fahmi Badoh, who leads the political corruption division of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said the tardiness indicates that there are lawmakers who fail to show a strong commitment in the country's fight against corruption.
"This depicts how our politicians feel like they are immune to the law," he said. Or worse, he said, some lawmakers may have deliberately not filed reports in order to hide illegal or questionable assets. "We have seen a lot of corruption cases that took place in the House."
The criticism comes days after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said 127 out of 560 lawmakers had yet to report their assets. The reports are due within two months of taking office. Lawmakers took office last October. According to the KPK, the Democratic Party had 42 tardy lawmakers, Golkar 27 and the National Mandate Party (PAN) 26.
"Unfortunately, there are no criminal sanctions [stipulated in the law] against them," Fahmi said. "Right now, all [the KPK does] is just warn."
Fahmi said that there should be concrete repercussions against such tardiness, as covering up personal assets could be a strong indication of a financial crime. "[Criminal sanctions] should be included in the anti-corruption law," he said.
At the very least, he said, there should be an in-house punishment mechanism within the House. "The House Honorary Council needs to be given more authority to punish because these lawmakers are perceivably damaging the honor of the [legislature]" Fahmi said.
House and party leaders should also push legislators to be more responsible in wealth asset reporting, he added.
Max Sopacua, deputy chairman of the Democratic Party, claimed lawmakers still had until July 21 to file reports. "Our party had instructed us all to report it as soon as possible," he said.
Many new lawmakers needed time to become familiarized with the practice, he said. "Besides, we were very busy in the last recess visiting our constituents."
Taufik Kurniawan, the House deputy speaker from PAN, denied that lawmakers from his party have been tardy, and that most members have yet to submit their reports because they were going to submit them collectively.
Tjahjo Kumolo, chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said that some PDI-P lawmakers' reports had to be returned to be corrected. "And we had instructed them to return it as soon as possible to be forwarded to the antigraft commission," Tjahjo said.