Grifters and grafters: Indonesia's anticorruption agency under attack

MLex Market Insight

News

4.9 • 9 Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2019

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

The staff at Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission have found their respected agency under attack from a seemingly unlikely source: parliament. A new bill passed just this week is set to clip its wings by making its activities and independence subject to the whims of a handpicked supervisory panel. It's an unwelcome development for an agency that is the most trusted of any state body in Southeast Asia's biggest economy, particularly because the legal offensive comes from the country's least trusted, the legislature itself. The uncharacteristic quiescence of the country's "clean-hands" president, Joko Widodo, seems set to allow the bill pass into law, potentially setting the nation's successful anticorruption efforts back years. MLex Asia Managing Editor David Plott spoke with Jakarta Correspondent Jet Damazo-Santos to explore how the bill came to pass, and what it means for a country that's trying to shed its unenviable reputation as one of the world's most corrupt places in which to do business.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another of Emlex's podcast right here from our Bureau in Hong Kong.
0:17.0	I'm David Plott, Emlex's managing editor for Asia.
0:20.6	If you're a newcomer to our podcast, we'd like to extend a very warm welcome.
0:25.3	And if you've tuned into us before, a very warm welcome back.
0:29.5	Today, we're taking a look at some startling developments in the country that's known for rampant corruption.
0:36.1	It's also a country where the anti-corruption enforcement agency
0:39.8	enjoys huge respect. That country is Indonesia. Just this week, lawmakers in Indonesia's parliament
0:47.9	voted to make the anti-graft agencies already tough job even tougher. They passed a law making the agency answerable to a
0:56.5	hand-picked supervisory board. That new board will have a yes or no say over whether the
1:02.7	agency can even carry out its wiretapping operations. Those operations have underpinned
1:08.8	its stunning success in the fight against Indonesia's huge corruption problem.
1:14.7	The agency is known as the Corruption Eradication Commission, or to give it its Indonesian acronym, the KPK.
1:23.2	Here with me now to discuss how much corruption the KPK continues to be able to eradicate is
1:29.3	Jet Damaso, Emlex's Jakarta correspondent. Welcome to this podcast, Jet.
1:37.7	Thank you, David. And hello from Jakarta. Good to hear you again, Jet. As you know, Indonesia has a long-standing reputation as a country riddled with corruption. It runs all the way from cops on the street to politicians at the highest levels and right through the business community. That's why the latest legislative assault on the KPK shocked Indonesians.
2:02.9	And let's bear in mind that the KPK enjoys more public trust than any government body in the entire country.
2:10.8	So what's behind this new bill aimed at limiting the independence and powers of the KPK?
2:24.3	Well, first, you're right, David, in pointing out that the KPK enjoys a lot of public trust. The institution has frequently topped surveys of the most trusted government bodies in Indonesia.
2:30.3	It ranks above the legislature, the national police, and even the office of the president.
2:36.0	And that's largely because of how effective it has been in investigating and prosecuting,
2:40.9	some of the most corrupt government officials in the country.
2:44.1	Over the past 17 years, they've jailed more than 200 national and local lawmakers.
	...

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