Jakarta – The Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has accused politicians, community leaders and local governments of being in thrall to the tobacco industry to perpetuate the industry's interests.
ICW director of public services Ade Irawan said the ICW suspected some cigarette companies of holding sway over politicians and local officials in Malang, Kediri and other cities in East Java.
"The Malang regional head had a non-formal agreement with the tobacco industry during the election in order to oblige the employees to vote for him," he said during his presentation at the Alliance of Independent Journalists' (AJI) workshop in Central Jakarta recently.
AJI was organizing a workshop titled, "Revealing relations between politicians, the government and the tobacco industry", and would give Rp 20 million (US$2,342) in fellowships to journalists to investigate the relations between the government and the tobacco industry.
Ade said the relationship patterns between the industry and the government included campaign donations, additional salary and new facilities.
Regional head candidates in Kudus, Central Java, were visiting tobacco companies during the election period to support them in their campaigns, he told the workshop's audience.
He added that all subdistrict heads in Kudus were getting an additional salary of up to Rp 2 million per month.
Kudus is known as "Kretek City" because about 75 percent of the population of 800,000 are employed by the kretek (clove cigarette) industry, and there are almost a quarter of a million workers – almost all of them women – who hand roll the cigarettes.
The industry also had special relations with religious figures and universities. "The industry often finances medical checkups for religious figures," Ade said.
According to information released by AJI, even the newspaper of the Democratic Party and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Jurnal Nasional, was financed by one of the family members of the largest Indonesian tobacco company, PT Sampoerna Tbk.
In return, the industry wanted the government to form regulations in favor of the industry. "For example, some regional heads were issuing permits to convert farmland into tobacco fields," Ade said.
Coordinating People's Welfare Minister, Agung Laksono, last May said the government would not approve the new draft of a government regulation on tobacco control in the near future.
Agung confirmed that the government would not make regulations that could harm specific community groups, in this case the tobacco industry, employees and the farmers.
The draft regulation is an implementation of the 2009 Health Law that mandates tobacco products are addictive substances that require further monitoring.
The Indonesian cigarette industry contributed about Rp 57 trillion in taxes to the government in 2010 and accounted for almost 1 percent of the country's GDP, a sharp increase from the Rp 55 trillion in 2009 and Rp 36 trillion in 2006.
According to the National Social and Economic Survey, the number of smokers in Indonesia reached 80 million in 2010, up from 34 million in 1995.
The survey also revealed that smoking among young men aged 15 to 19 years old increased to 38 percent from 17 percent during the previous period. (drs)