Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Law enforcers have not performed well in their attempts to fight corruption which has swept from public officials and state institutions to rural administration, the Indonesian Corruption Watchdog (ICW) said in a report.

Yasonna H. Laoly, a member of the House of Representatives' commission III on legal affairs has praised ICW's mid-year report, which included a focus on cases exposed by local media, but he said it had failed to provide recommendations for improvements.

"As corruption is rampant among government officials and in state institutions, the number of graft cases in the first semester should be far more than ICW's reported 132," Yasonna said.

"Law enforcers' poor performance has a lot to do with the absence of a clear-cut policy and job description between the National Police, Attorney General's Office (AGO) and Anticorruption Commission (KPK) in handling corruption cases."

He said he was sure corruption had swept through the executive and legislative bodies at all levels and the judiciary system.

Yasonna has a PhD in law from North Carolina State University and said the fight against corruption should start by "writing-off all stolen state assets and requiring the perpetrators to return a part of the stolen assets to the state".

"At the same time, the wages of public officials and civil servants should be raised by 200 to 300 percent," he said. "Since then, any officials found guilty of corruption must be given harsh sanctions, up to a life sentence."

Yasonna said making a bad debt of stolen assets could be inserted in the planned revision of the law on the KPK.

"The anticorruption commission should be revamped to have it establish its branch offices in provinces," he said. "The law should make job descriptions clear to avoid overlapped authority between the police and the AGO."

He said the KPK, the police and the AGO should put all state institutions under their supervision and that their performance should be evaluated annually.

KPK, which spent Rp 300 billion (US$33 million) annually in handling corruption cases, has been found ineffective because it could not act independently.

The House law commission was still seeking a revision of the KPK law to include representative offices in provinces so that graft cases committed by public officials in regions could be probed effectively and efficiently.

Yasonna said the National Police headquarters should handle graft cases in several state departments and the AGO should be in charge of graft cases in other departments.

"A similar job description could be applied in provinces and regencies and municipalities," he said.