Jakarta – Indonesia's 2015 rankings in the annual survey conducted by Berlin-based Transparency International improved slightly despite a year marred by seemingly systematic efforts to undermine the country's anti-graft agency.

Indonesia scores 36, with 100 being completely clean of corruption, in the group's annual Corruption Perception Index study, which was released on Wednesday (27/1).

The score is a slight improvement from last year's 34, enough to increase Indonesia's ranking to 88 out of the 168 countries surveyed this year. Last year, Indonesia was placed at 107th out of 175 countries surveyed.

With a worldwide average index of 43, Indonesia's score still indicates weak or ineffective efforts to counter corruption, Transparency International Indonesia researcher, Ilham Saenong noted at the survey's release in Jakarta.

2015 has been marked with attempts to weaken the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) most notably the charging of then-KPK commissioners Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto, which many see as a retaliation for the anti-graft agency's decision in January to name Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan as a suspect for bribery just as he was being nominated as the country's top cop.

The KPK also had its top officials and investigators threatened with criminal charges by the police, some for cases dating back more than a decade.

The House of Representatives has also tried to strip the KPK from its powers by proposing a revision on the antigraft agency. The House postponed the plan after wide public backlash. Last year, lawmakers also decided to sideline experienced and credible candidates for a new batch of KPK commissioners during a House vetting process.

The attacks against the KPK seems to undermine President Joko Widodo's achievements to introduce transparency and reforms, most notably in the country's oil sector. Ilham said that Indonesia could have scored better if the attempts to undermine the KPK had not occurred.

"It's true that the KPK had been weakened, but there was an improvement in our bureaucracy and public services," Ilham said.

Denmark tops the survey with score of 91, followed by Finland with 90, and New Zealand with 88. Regionally, Indonesia comes in at fourth place, slightly lower than Thailand at 38, but far below neighboring Singapore (85) and Malaysia (50).

Source: http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/indonesias-corruption-index-improves-despite-weakened-KPK/