JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Two days after arresting Cirebon Regent Sunjaya Purwadisastra, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested eight members of the Central Kalimantan Legislative Council (DPRD) and six other people at a hotel in Jakarta on Friday. The arrests show the existence of massive corruption practices in various fields.
Since its establishment in 2004, the KPK has arrested 554 people. They include, among others, 205 central and regional legislators, regional heads, 204 people from the private sector, 22 judges, seven prosecutors and 10 lawyers. At least four corporations have also been legally processed.
Corruption, which involves parties from various backgrounds, does not only threaten governance, it can also damage values in the community. A sociology lecturer at the University of Indonesia, Meuthia Ganie Rochman, said on Friday that in the short term, massive corruption affected resources, which could have been used for the development and improvement of public institutions.
In the long term, corruption can damage the community and create moral deviations.
A philosophy lecturer at the University of Pelita Harapan Jakarta, Budi Hardiman, expressed fear that institutionalized corruption could erode morals. When the behavior of leaders are morally problematic, communities can lose certain values, which can cause them to lose a grip on what is considered good and bad. Morality will then be relative.
"When people start to lose sight of what is good and bad, crime becomes routine and part of everyday life. It can lead people to react collectively to provocation, which indicates a lack of shared moral awareness," Budi said.
The threat to moral awareness is reflected, among other things, in a survey by the Global Corruption Barometer 2017 for the Asia Pacific region, which said that 32 percent of Indonesians preferred to give bribes to help facilitate their business or other needs whenever they have to deal with institutions or bureaucracy.
Many aspects
Plans to eradicate corruption have been put in place. Besides strict action through the legal process against perpetrators, preventive measures have also been implemented, such as encouraging the application of an electronic system in the budgeting and procurement of goods and services.
These measures were taken because out of the 782 corruption cases that were processed by the KPK since 2004, 180 were related to misuse in the procurement of goods and services and 46 were the corruption of budgets.
However, according to the secretary-general of Transparency International Indonesia (TII), Dadang Trisasongko, the preventive measures with regards to e-procurement, e-planning and e-budgeting have not been fully effective. ”Bribery frequently happens despite the electronic system. The system at a certain level can be breached,” he said.
Meuthia said corruption eradication in Indonesian was on the right path, but was hindered by political intransigence. Some leaders face severe headwinds when they want to improve the system. “The solution is to improve the quality of organizations. Public and community organizations in Indonesia in general are stagnant and not reflective. As a result, they are unable to become partners which are critical for the government,” she said.
From the legal side, the strengthening of sanctions to give deterrent effects, which are frequently aired by the civil community, have to be implemented. One of them is the application of the legal “performance” through social works for the corruptors. However, according to Budi, this would be unable to run by itself because it needed to be supported by improvements, which needed to be integrated in other social systems, both in politics, culture and economy.
A sociology professor at the University of Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta, Sunyoto Usman, said certain values was needed and that stealing state money was damaging to the economy and culture.
The introduction of values, Sunyoto said, could be carried out with the help of films, television screenings and dissemination of messages through social media.
In the old days, traditional art was used to criticize colonialism. Now, cultural products can be used to educate people. The state needs to be present in this process as well, but civil community groups, including religious organizations, also need to take part.
Waste disposal
Out of the eight legislators of the Central Kalimantan Legislative Council, who were arrested by the KPK, one is believed to a commission chairman. During this operation, the KPK also arrested six people from the private sector and confiscated Rp 240 million in cash.
Based on information compiled by Kompas, the eight legislators allegedly received bribes related to the disposal of oil palm waste from an oil palm plantation company in Central Kalimantan.
(AGE/IAN/BOW/IDO/GAL/WIN/SEM/APA)