Alexander Irwan – Last year, the Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia published a study entitled "The Poor Speak Out: 17 Corruption Cases", which covered several poor communities in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Makassar.
It reveals a disturbing picture. In Indonesia, the poor have more than just poverty to contend with – they also have to pay bribes to get some essential public services. Indonesia ranked 96th in last year's Transparency International corruption index – sixth from bottom.
The reality of everyday life is, however, far more depressing than the figures can convey. The study reveals that poor people in positions of authority shamelessly use their power to extort bribes from other poverty-stricken people.
For example, the report says, poor parents were told they would have to bribe a needy teacher at a public school in an eastern Jakarta slum to get their child's report card. When the teacher refused to release one girl's report card, her mother, Fitri, went to the headmaster. He did nothing. He even admitted that on another occasion, the teacher had made up a story about the death of a student's parent and had told other parents to give money to the family. However, the headmaster said the request for a contribution had been the teacher's business and he was unable to do anything about it.
Naturally, Fitri concluded that the headmaster probably got a share of the money extorted from the parents, and felt she had no choice other than to go back to the teacher and pay her 10,000 rupiah. However, it was not enough, and the teacher still refused to give her Nina's report card. When Nina started to cry, Fitri gave another 5,000 rupiah to the teacher, who smiled and finally gave her the report. When she got home, Fitri told neighbours of her experience. However, what she could not share was the fact that the 15,000 rupiah was actually her money to buy groceries.
The study highlights another, equally disturbing fact: that in some corruption cases the poor pay more than the rich, in absolute terms. According to the survey, the poorest fifth paid considerably more than the average to bribe officials in the National Land Body.
And the situation is even worse in the Civic Registry Office, where the poorest fifth pays almost double that of the average respondent. Even though the poorest fifth in the study paid less than the average in other corruption cases, we should not let the absolute amount of bribes fool us. In terms of income, the richest fifth among the respondents earns 15.5 times more than the poorest fifth. However, the amount paid in bribes by the average respondent is only slightly higher than that paid by the poorest fifth.
The only conclusion we can draw from the findings is that the poor pay more than the rich in all corruption cases, meaning they have to spend a much larger portion of their income on bribes. For the poor, there is no such thing as a petty bribe.
Even without having to pay corrupt officials, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for them to save for emergencies – such as when a family member needs medical treatment – or for when their children need new school books. And it is their daily diet which suffers when they have to find money for bribes.
When they are already living at a subsistence level, it is impossible to get bank loans. To pay bribes, some may be lucky enough to get loans from relatives or neighbours. Others are forced to go to loan sharks with sky-high interest rates.
The national and regional governments in Indonesia care little for the fact that corruption hurts the poor. In fact, they do not even care about eradicating corruption. The national government is more concerned with raising funds for its political parties, mainly through corrupt practices, to compete in next year's election.
The regional governments, under decentralisation which began in 2001, have been busy moving corrupt practices away from Jakarta to their own areas, where monitoring is almost non-existent. It is no coincidence that Indonesia has been ranked one of the world's most corrupt countries. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing exactly what toll this exacts on the poor.
[Alexander Irwan is an Aceh and Papua adviser for the Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia.]