New leader must be firm in tackling graft: SBY

JAKARTA. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono claimed on Tuesday that he had taken aggressive measures to combat corruption and expected his successor to continue in his footsteps.

“We must admit we have not won the war against corruption,” Yudhoyono said at the State Palace during the opening ceremony of the fourth Indonesian Corruption Forum.

“This will be the task of my successor and probably the successor of my successor.”

Yudhoyono argued that corruption eradication needed the involvement of every level. He revealed that during his first tenure many political figures asked him to either halt the fight or to help their associates linked to corruption cases.

Many members of the Democratic Party, which is led by Yudhoyono, have been convicted of graft, including former party chairman Anas Urbaningrum.

“The new leaders, whether at the national or local levels, as well as those in the executive, judicial and legislative branches, have to be strong and firm, and never falter in the face of this significant and hard task,” he said, adding that he welcome presidential candidates’ “commitment and strong will to eradicate corruption” during the presidential debate on Monday night.

“I hope, we all hope, that [the next leader] can remain consistent and true to their word,” he said.

During the debate, the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa ticket said that they would increase the salaries of law enforcers — citing that judges in the UK were paid more than its prime minister — as well as the need to strengthen the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), while Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Jusuf Kalla pointed out the importance of consistent law enforcement and the need to improve monitoring.

The debate, however, failed to satisfy the KPK. Although KPK deputy chief Bambang Widjojanto said he appreciated the candidates’ commitment to strengthen the KPK, he lamented the fact that the two candidates had failed to elaborate substantially on their ideas.

Although admitting that he had failed to eradicate corruption, Yudhoyono refused to acknowledge that he had been anything less than serious in his fight against graft. “For we have done a lot of things,” he said,

Transparency International’s (TI) 2013 Corruption Perception Index puts Indonesia in the 114th place out of 177 countries surveyed, which is four places higher than 2012 but retaining Indonesia’s as 32 on the corruption scale. The scale is measured from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Moreover, TI’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) found that 72 percent of 1,000 respondents perceived corruption to be on the increase.

As many as 65 percent of the same 1,000 respondents also said that efforts to eradicate corruption were not effective. The survey also named the police, the House of Representatives and the judiciary as the three-most corrupt public institutions in the country.

During the same event at the Palace, Transparency International Indonesia (TII) executive board Natalia Soebagjo agreed with Yudhoyono, and reminded all stakeholders that strong synergy was important to tackling corruption.

“We need to work harder and have a political system that is able to support such eradication efforts. If we are able to realize the two, we will be able to eradicate corruption,” Natalia said.

The forum — attended by civil society organizations, government representatives, academics and experts — is expected to be able to build and strengthen the network of stakeholders. It also aimed to flag anti-corruption agendas to be improved by the new administration. (Ina Parlina)