Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The health sector is "highly vulnerable" to fraudulent practices, with state losses from the 49 cases currently under investigation totaling Rp 128 billion (US$10.24 million), the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) says.
A researcher at the ICW's public services monitoring division, Ratna Kusumaningsih, told press in Jakarta on Friday that officials in local health agencies and in state hospitals were the most likely to engage in corrupt activities.
She said 18 cases, costing nearly Rp 100 billion in total, were linked to corrupt actions allegedly committed by officials at regency, municipal and provincial health agencies while 16 cases totalling Rp 17.6 billion were allegedly linked to state-owned hospital officials.
Other cases involved officials at state enterprises, community health centers, regional administrations and project managers.
"From our investigations, 54 corruption cases in the health sector are currently being examined by either the provincial attorney's offices, the Corruption Eradication Commission or the police," Ratna said.
She said the majority of fraud cases occurred during the procurement of health equipment, the purchasing of medicines and the construction of hospital and community health centers.
Other cases involved misappropriation of the Askeskin (health insurance for the underprivileged, now called Jamkesmas) funds, and misuse of hospital employees' salaries.
"The most frequent method of fraud is via mark ups (of spending), which caused losses of just over Rp 100.0 billion," Ratna said.
Another ICW researcher, Febri Hendri, said law enforcers had so far only dealt with these corruption cases at the "middle-lower" level.
The "middle-upper" cases – including those allegedly involving senior officials at the Health Ministry, the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, as well as lawmakers – remain untouchable.
"Corruption at this level could have devastating impacts on the quality of health services and the community's access to these services," he said.
He urged law enforcers to immediately start investigating these high-profile allegations of fraud and corruption.
The ICW said the health sector was highly vulnerable to corruption as it managed a huge amount of funds, while lacking transparency and accountability.
According to the watchdog, the government distributed Rp 16 trillion of funds to the health sector alone in 2007, while the pharmaceutical industry's turnover reached Rp 29 trillion in that same year.
Febri said the impact of corruption in the health sector could trigger rising medical costs for patients, decrease access to health services for the poor and deteriorate the overall health status for communities affected.