Sri Wahyuni, Yogyakarta – Breakthroughs are needed in 2010 to successfully fight corruption in the country, director of Gadjah Mada University's School of Law's Center for Anticorruption Studies (Pukat Korupsi), Zainal Arifin Mochtar, said Wednesday.
Zainal said among the breakthroughs included creating the promised task force to fight against judicial mafia, a real dynamic and powerful institution given extraordinary executing authority in carrying out its job.
"Otherwise, the taskforce will be toothless. So, don't just give us a lip service," said Zainal, referring to the promise made by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to make the fight against judicial mafia a priority in his 100-day program.
"It's been two months since the promise was announced. However, it's not clear how the task force will carry out its job and what method it will use to fight against the judicial mafia," Zainal said.
Other breakthroughs, according to Zainal, include the institutional reform for law enforcement institutions such as the prosecutors' offices and police, which would not be undertaken by increasing the salary of the employees at both the institutions that proved to be ineffective in the old days.
"It's indeed difficult to implement breakthroughs at this particular time, especially from the government, but we must not lose hope as hope that makes the world beautiful," he said.
Zainal also said the fight against corruption in Indonesia in 2009 had become stagnant, in term of actors of the practice, modus and how corruption cases were handled by authorities.
"We call it the treadmill effect phenomenon where we seem to have run very fast [in fighting against corruption] but in fact we are walking," Zainal said.
Pukat Korupsi researcher Hifdzil Alim said that a study held by the center revealed that there had been an increase in the fight against corruption in the country during 2009 but it was not that significant compared to the previous year.
The biggest success in handling corruption cases, such as the previous year, was still in the hands of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) with 58 cases, followed by regency/municipal prosecutors' offices with 35 cases and provincial prosecutors' offices or the Attorney General's Office with 13 cases.
"We expect to see more corruption cases brought to courts, especially because we have a total of 510 prosecutors' offices across the country, ranging from the AGO at the national level down to the regency/municipal ones," Hifdzil said.
The study, based on 202 corruption cases monitored through 10 printed and electronic media from Jan. 1 to Dec. 15, 2009, according to Hifdzil, also ranks regional councilors as corrupt.
They are followed by regional administration executives, president directors of companies, regional administration agency chiefs, ministerial officials, legislators and bankers.
"The numerous involvement of regional administration officials in corruption cases also shows that corruption potential is in regions," he said.
The center, therefore, suggests that regional surveillance must be continued and increased in the regions. "What we see presently is that the further the regions are from Jakarta, the lesser the surveillance," Hifdzil said.
The center also blames the increased state budget provided to the regional administrations as the main cause of the increase in the number of corrupt practices in the respective regions. Of the 2009 Rp 1,003 trillion (US$100 million) state budget, the center notes some Rp 600 trillion went to regional administrations.