The House of Representatives and political parties have been labelled the most corrupt institutions in Indonesia by an international corruption watchdog. Transparency International Indonesia (TI Indonesia) ranked them first in its corruption barometer report for 2004 released earlier this week.

TI Indonesia said the index of public perception of both the House and political parties was 4.4 out of a maximum five points, at which point an institution can be categorised as 'very corrupt'. They were followed by the Customs and excise office, the judiciary, the police and the tax office, which measured 4.3, 4.2, 4.2 and 4 respectively.

In computing the corruption index, TI Indonesia interviewed more than 1,200 people in Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan between July and September this year. The immigration office was perceived by Indonesians as being the least corrupt government agency with an index of 0.4.