Rabby Pramudatama, Jakarta – The Transportation and Trade Ministries are among the few state institutions with the most effective corruption prevention programs, according to a recent assessment by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
The Anticorruption Initiative Assessment (PIAK) held between Jan. 15 and Oct. 4 was conducted to establish whether preventive measures at state institutions were effective.
"Corruption has been thriving in many government institutions, not only in the central government but also in local administrations. To prevent the trend from increasing, we initiated this PIAK program," KPK deputy chairman Busyro Muqoddas told a press conference in Jakarta on Thursday.
This year, the KPK assessed a total of 36 institutions, which included 18 ministries, three agencies, the Supreme Court, the House of Representative's secretariat and dozens of city administrations.
Through this annual program, Busyro said, the KPK has witnessed impressive progress in many government institutions, especially in public services provided by government offices involved in the program.
Among all participating government institutions, the Transportation Ministry received 7.65 points (on scale of 10), while the Trade Ministry obtained 7.49 points.
Indicators in the assessment included having a code of ethics, transparency in procurement, transparency in human resources management, a mechanism to deal with public complaints, public access to information and implementation of improvement recommendations from the KPK and the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and anticorruption measures.
Transportation Ministry inspector-general Iskandar Abubakar said his institution had implemented all initiatives set out as indicators, but most importantly it had implemented an electronic procurement system that greatly reduced the possibility of corruption in the institution.
Meanwhile, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said on Thursday 285 cases of corruption had taken place in the country within the first half of this year. Altogether, those graft cases could potentially cause Rp 1.22 trillion (US$127.21 million) in state losses.
"We compared the data to the first half of 2010 and found more cases, but the amount of state losses was smaller," said ICW investigative head Agus Sunaryanto at a press conference in Jakarta on Thursday.
In the first half of 2010, the watchdog found 176 cases with a combined state loss of Rp 2.1 trillion. In comparison, a similar value was recorded for the whole of 2011, with 436 cases.
"Infrastructure regained its status as the most corrupt sector, replacing the education sector," said ICW activist Tama S. Langkun.
As many as 87 corruption cases were recorded in several infrastructure projects. Government budgetary and education sectors followed with 50 cases and 29 cases, respectively.
"The three top positions have always been occupied by these sectors. These means that corruption eradication efforts haven't made a significant impact," he explained.
Local prosecutors' offices handled the highest number of cases at 168, followed by the police with 99 cases and the KPK with 18 cases.
Agus said that even though the KPK recorded fewer cases, the anti-graft body had investigated the cases with the highest potential losses, Rp. 1.5 trillion in total.
"We appreciate that the AGO has started to reveal corruption in the natural resources sector, which might have resulted in huge financial losses," he said. (yps)