When ‘Ordinary People’ Look at Corruption...

· 5 minutes read

Corruption is a tale of irony. The state, which is supposed to provide equal opportunity for all its citizens, has become as though it is helpless in the face of the budget and policy leaks spouting from the greedy behavior of its elite. The “ordinary people” can only be disappointed, angry and be dissatisfied.

Kampung Badur in Medan Maimun district, Medan city, where 46-year-old Risdawati Malau lives, is less than 1 kilometer from the North Sumatra Legislative Council. The two places are “connected” by the Deli River. However, different from the council building, which is strong, clean and comfortable, Risdawati lives in poverty on the riverbank. Flooding is a regular event that she faces during every heavy rain.

In the riverbank kampung, Risdawati rents two semi-permanent “rooms”, each measuring 3 meters by 4 meters. The floor is made of wooden planks, while the wall is made of plywood and wood. Her situation is not very different from the 200 other families that live in the kampung. Only motorcycles can pass along the 1-meter-wide road that runs through the kampung.

Every day, Risdawati and her husband earn a living by scavenging for used goods, or as botot in the language of Medan, earning tens of thousands of rupiah per day. This amount significantly adds to her husband\'s monthly wage of around Rp 400,000 as an office cleaner.

Risdawati said she had never benefited from from the regional administration’s poverty alleviation program. She had also never been a beneficiary of the central government’s programs like Family Hope or school assistance programs. Therefore, when she heard that up to 50 members of the North Sumatra Legislative Council were involved in corruption cases, she only felt disappointment. “Our fate rests in our own hard work, not in the officials,” she said on Saturday (12/09/2018).

Corruption cases involving dozens of public representatives have occurred not only in North Sumatra, but also in the East Java city of Malang. Forty-one members of the 45-strong Malang Municipal Legislative Council were involved in corruption in approving the regional budget. Such cases receive varying public response, ranging from the disappointment to indifference.

Novi Arianti, 35, a married woman in Bunulrejo village of Blimbing district, Malang, said she was shocked upon hearing about the mass bribery case in her city.

"As kera Ngalam [Malang person], I am very disappointed. How could they act so sweet in front of us, but instead they use our trust to commit corruption?” she said.

Muhammad Fahmi, 27, of Kasri Gading, Malang, said that when the bribery case was made public, everyone was of course shocked. "But we feel it has is no direct impact on us. Life in Malang just goes on without them," he said.

Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Donal Fariz said that the anger that eventually led to public indifference was inseparable from the growing sense of unsusceptibility among the people, who were informed almost daily about corrupt officials.

It seemed that the people were no longer shocked by the public disclosure of corruption cases. Aside from the fact that such cases kept recurring, the public had grown tired of the anti-corruption promises of the candidates running in the general or regional elections, which were generally unfulfilled. There were even officials who signed integrity pacts, only to eventually be arrested for bribery or embezzling state funds.

"The tendency toward public apathy, which is caused by the fact that they are tired [of corruption], is not healthy for eradicating corruption. Because this will not bring about corrective measures against corruption, in contributing to both its prevention and prosecution," said Donal.

Real impact

When part of the public believes that corruption has no impact on their lives, corruption actually has a real impact on their daily lives. In Malang, the construction of the Kedungkandang Bridge is the most visible illustration of this.

Kedungkandang Bridge is expected to drive improvement in welfare for the people in eastern Malang. However, the discovery of the mass bribery case in the local legislative council will delay the bridge’s construction.

In Malang regency, the corruption case involving Malang Regent Rendra Kresna has also had an impact on the local community. Rendra was indicted in a Rp 7 billion bribery case in connection with the procurement of supporting facilities to improve education quality. The funds were embezzled from the project’s budget allocation. This condition reflects the irony of the poor condition of the local school infrastructure. Three hundred seven of the 7,875 elementary school classrooms were severely damaged in 2016, while 91 junior high school classrooms were damaged.

In terms of welfare, the residents of Malang regency also need anti-poverty programs to help them escape the poverty cycle. Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data shows that the population of poor people in Malang regency in 2017 was 283,960, or 11.04 percent of its total population of 2.5 million.

Seeing the above snippets of daily lives, it is undeniable that corruption is a disease that destroys people\'s lives. Therefore, it is no exaggeration if what is done by corrupt elites is in line with the poem " Raja-raja Indonesia Kini” (the kings of Indonesia today) by D.Z. Sandyarto, which was read out at the Celoteh Theater’s commemoration of International Anti-Corruption Day in Malang: "Jadi raja-raja kecil adalah kenyataanya, dari jaman daulu hingga kini, tak pernah cukup gaji, selalu wajibkan upeti, yang menolak dibuang bahkan bisa hilang dan mati... (So the little kings are the reality, from time past until today, never having enough salary, always asking for tributes, those that refuse are cast aside or are lost and dead)."

However, will the “ordinary people’ remain silent and simply watch this irony continue? (NSA/DIA/WER/GAL)

Editor:

corruption Community ordinary people