Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Frequent corruption cases in government procurement projects prove that recent corrections made to the system, including introducing an online tender system, have not significantly improved matters.

Agus Rahardjo, the head of the government procurement regulatory body (LKPP), said that clean procurement procedures needed time to work. "The current procurement procedures, which are, to some extent, prone to corruption have already been there for years," Agus told The Jakarta Post.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) recorded that most corruption cases in the government were related to goods and services procurement, including 86 cases from 2004 to 2010. The graft cases involved officials inflating prices, directly appointing a company to deliver a project, or accepting bribes.

"Sometimes [corruption cases] were the result of politics. Politics are costly; and some pay off debts by cheating the procurement process," Agus said. He said 35 to 40 percent of the state budget is spent on procurement.

"Therefore, an important solution is the commitment of the leaders of all stakeholders," he said, adding that many subordinates responsible for procurement in many institutions were afraid of disobeying instructions from their seniors to engage in wrongdoing.

The government has tried to improve the system by holding online tenders for several projects and providing information about the projects to mass media. The online bidding system, known as e-procurement, must be adopted by all state-owned companies, governmental institutions, ministries and local administration by 2012.

But old habits die hard. Transparency International Indonesia procurement specialist Heni Yulianto told the Post that arisan procurement practices were common. The term refers to procurements that involve bribery, fixed bids, mark-ups, and "budget trading". "And people know the usual suspects are those exposed to high political costs."

He cited a recent bribery case centering on the construction of a SEA Games athletes' dormitory implicating an official at the Youth and Sports Ministry who is alleged of having acted as a middleman between a legislator and the company that won the bid.

He also criticized e-procurement as lacking transparency because it did not involve the public. "It lacks a public complaint procedure; and who would follow up the complaints anyway?" he said.