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Indonesians believe corruption more rampant this year, survey finds

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Jakarta Post - December 31, 2020

Jakarta – A majority of Indonesians noticed that corruption had become more rampant in the country, according to a recent survey by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC).

The survey polled 1,202 respondents from Dec. 23 to 26 and found that 55 percent of them believed there were more corruption cases in 2020 than in the previous year, and 26 percent said it was the same as last year. About 13 percent of the respondents, meanwhile, said this year saw a decrease in the number of graft cases.

SMRC executive director Sirojudin Abbas said public opinions in the survey were affected by the recently uncovered corruption cases involving two ministers of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo – both have been named suspects and later were replaced by new ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle early last week.

"It seems that corruption cases involving the Social Affairs Ministry and the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry have contributed to Indonesians' negative view of corruption," Abbas said on Tuesday, tempo.co reported.

The number of respondents believing that corruption cases were rampant grew when compared with similar SMRC surveys in March 2020 and April 2019. In the March survey, 47 of respondents said there were more cases of corruption this year, 18 percent said there were fewer cases and 28 percent said that it was the same.

In the April 2019 survey, 48 percent of respondents said there were more corruption cases that year, 24 percent said there were fewer and 21 percent said the number of cases always remained the same.

Similar perceptions of the level of corruption were reflected in another recent study by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI). It found that Indonesia's ongoing battle against corruption appeared to be making little headway as fewer people expressed enthusiasm for the government's efforts to prevent illicit transactions and prosecute graft perpetrators over the past two years.

In the survey, which polled 2,000 people across the archipelago between Nov. 29 and Dec. 3, only 28.3 percent of respondents noticed an improvement in the government's graft prevention efforts – a decline from the 42.7 percent recorded in a similar survey conducted in late 2018.

Similarly, only 22.2 percent of the respondents believed law enforcement against graft perpetrators had improved. That also marks a significant drop from the 44.1 percent recorded in the 2018 survey.

"It is a sharp decline. This could be a signal for us to see that people perceive corruption to be getting worse in terms of prevention and law enforcement," LSI executive director Djayadi Hanan said during an online forum held by the research firm in early December. (ami)

Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/12/30/indonesians-believe-corruption-more-rampant-this-year-survey-finds.htm

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