Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – In spite of public support for a new building for the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), lawmakers are sticking to their guns in their refusal to budget money for the project.
Aziz Syamsuddin, the Golkar Party lawmaker who is deputy chairman of House Commission III overseeing law and human rights, said on Monday that commission lawmakers from nine political parties had not made any decision on the new building, telling the KPK to rent additional space instead.
"None of the nine parties have agreed to remove the asterisk on the budget proposal," Aziz said, referring to the hold lawmakers have placed on finalizing the KPK's budget request.
Azis said that commission lawmakers from all nine parties had suggested that the Finance Ministry rent vacant buildings for the KPK and for all other state bodies without state-owned headquarters, including the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), and the National Narcotics Agency (BNN).
The KPK proposed a budget of Rp 225.712 billion (US$24.15 million) for a new headquarters in 2008, saying that its current building on Jl. Rasuna Said in Kuningan, South Jakarta, was over capacity.
The 31-year-old building – formerly the headquarters of Bank Papan Sejahtera, which was liquidated by the government in 1999 – was designed to host 350. The KPK's current staff tops 752 employees and officials seconded from other agencies.
Responding to the House's intransigence, the KPK's leaders devised a public donation initiative, which has so far raised Rp 100 million.
Several Commission III lawmakers, including Didi Irawadi Syamsuddin from the Democratic Party and Martin Hutabarat from the Great Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra), have privately supported funding a new headquarters for the KPK. Aziz, however, said that the personal opinions of lawmakers were irrelevant unless their parties endorsed their views.
"We have a procedure here. We previously accepted an official statement from each party on their rejection [of the KPK's proposal] and nothing will change unless the parties make official written statements to change their decisions, which we must discuss in a plenary session," Aziz said.
Commission III is expected to make its final decision on the budget for the KPK headquarters on Tuesday.
Separately, Bertrand de Speville, the former commissioner of Hong Kong's Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), said that the KPK's request for a new, state-funded building was justified.
Hong Kong, with a population of 7 million people, had 1,300 employees on its antigraft task force, de Speville said. He drew a contrast with Indonesia, which has a population of 238 million and around 470,000 police officers. "It is not enough," de Speville said.
The KPK would definitely need a new building before it could add more staffers, de Speville added. "They [KPK] haven't got enough people. They need more people. But people need office space to work because the current one seems to be too small," de Speville said.
"They need sufficient room. Whether it is a new separate building or an additional rented premises. The important thing is that they should have a bit of space for an office, and Jakarta has a lot," de Speville told reporters on the sidelines of a closed-door meeting with lawmakers on Commission III.
De Speville also said that he was heartened to see the massive public support evinced for the KPK. "Public support is a very valuable asset to eradicate corruption. The government and the KPK must not waste the strong support from the public. You cannot win the fight [against corruption] unless you get and maintain public support," he said.