Jakarta – Police have performed the worst out of all public institutions over the last seven years, with many people complaining about undue delays, the National Ombudsman Commission revealed.

Dominikus DS, an assistant at the commission dealing with the improvement of public services, said Wednesday many people had filed complaints about the police.

"Public complaints about police performance are the highest in comparison to complaints about other public institutions in the country," said Dominikus.

The Ombudsman has been keeping public feedback about the police since the commission was established seven years ago, he said. He added that police performance had improved from year to year but still maintained its poor ranking.

He added that the public mainly complained about undue delays and unresolved cases, with police often being accused of failing to submit cases to the prosecutor's offices.

"Our data shows that the undue delay of cases tops other complaints reported by the public, such as corruption and cronyism, power abuse, and violations of procedure."

He said that between January and March this year, the commission received a total of 186 complaints from the public, with 62 complaints addressed to police at all levels, from National Police headquarters down to local police subprecincts.

"The total of (reported) unresolved cases was 70, which represented 40 percent of the total reports we received in the commission's three offices in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara during that period," Dominikus said.

Last year, the commission received 273 complaints of delayed cases, which amounted to around 35 percent of the overall total of 788 complaints for all public services.

Dominikus said his office did not have any specific data on complaints about unresolved cases in Greater Jakarta.

The Jakarta Police annual report recorded 61,080 crimes last year in the capital city and its surrounding areas of Bogor, Bekasi, Depok and Tangerang, with only 24,036 or around 40 percent of cases being resolved.

The percentage was higher than 2005, when police managed to resolve only 32.5 percent of a total of 58,027 cases.

City police spokesman Sr. Comr. I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said Wednesday that many cases could not be followed up because the adequate legal foundations were not there, but would not elaborate on what was meant by this.

Separately, Neta S. Pane from Indonesian Police Watch said there were several factors causing the police's poor performance.

The first factor was a lack of commitment among police to serving the public and improving their performance, he said. According to Neta, inadequacies in the legal system and low police budgets also contributed to poor performance.

Neta said that despite police performance having improved every year, people's expectations for consistent law enforcement – which had been an aim of the reform process since 1998 – were not being met.

Commenting on the 2005 and 2006 city police reports, Neta said he believed the actual number of unresolved cases to be much higher. He also alleged that many cases involving high ranking figures in National Police headquarters had never been properly dealt with.

"We have to remind the public about cases of the 15 (bank) accounts (of high ranking police officers) and Comr. Gen. Erwin Mappaseng. The public has the right to know about progress, if there is any," he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Police Watch earlier alleged 15 high ranking officers at the National Police headquarters were found with an inordinately large amount of money in their bank accounts. While Erwin, also from the headquarters, allegedly received commission fees from a private bank for helping it collect debts.

According to Neta, an independent institution was needed to help police to improve their performance.

He said that non-profit organizations, such as Police Watch, were not strong enough to force the police to improve their performance since they did not have an adequate legal basis. He also said the Police Supervisory Commission, which was established via legislation, could not carry out its job properly because it was headed by a government official.

He also added that the House of Representatives' Commission III overseeing legal affairs should be more active in urging the police to improve their performance in serving the public.