Armando Siahaan – Aceh's government has failed to eradicate corruption in the province and has instead become mired in more graft, according to a scathing new survey released on Tuesday by a top watchdog.
The survey by Transparency International Indonesia shows 75 percent of the 2,140 respondents polled across the province believe the administration has failed to effectively tackle corruption, while 19 percent think it has been highly ineffective.
In another damning statistic, 38 percent of respondents said the provincial administration was the most corrupt public institution in Aceh, followed by the police force and the provincial legislature.
TII's Frenky Simanjuntak said the survey, which was conducted in March and April of this year, aimed to gauge public perceptions of bureaucratic corruption following the December 2004 tsunami and the August 2005 Helsinki peace accord.
The study showed 51 percent of respondents believed that corruption had worsened after the tsunami, while 46 percent believed the peace deal had failed to address the issue.
Tarmizi Karim, an expert adviser at the Ministry of Home Affairs, said the tsunami disaster had resulted in a huge influx of foreign aid and assistance, opening the way for mismanagement and corruption.
Meanwhile, the national Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said the results were "in line" with its own findings.
"To date, there have been 800 reports from the public about graft in Aceh, of which only 155 have been followed up on by the local authorities," KPK official Lutfi Ganda Supriadi said.
The TII study also showed that the implementation of Shariah law in the staunchly Islamic province had done nothing to address the issue of graft. Some 48 percent of respondents said Shariah law had been ineffective in dealing with graft, and 15 percent believed it actually fostered corruption.
Between 2007 and 2009, a total of 28 Shariah-based bylaws were passed by local authorities in Aceh, but only one dealt with the issue of corruption.
Respondents were also asked how corruption should be dealt with. Sixty-seven percent called for stricter law enforcement, while 15 percent said civil servants' salaries should be raised to stop them seeking bribes.
Meanwhile, 10 percent called for antigraft principles to be taught to young people at schools and universities.