The Corruption in Indonesia

Nowadays, corruption in Indonesia is the hottest topic for our country. We see, every news, at least once, showed some news about corruption. According to studies conducted both by the Berlin-based organisation, Transparency International, and by the Hong Kong-based organisation, Political and Economic Review Risk Consultancy (Katz, 1995; Aji, 1995), Indonesia is one the world’s most corrupt countries. As we can see corruption on our country is already like a ‘culture’ for us, because almost every white-collar people knows how to corrupt things and  money. Yes, it’s been a ‘disease’ for Indonesia and must be vanished.

Hence, the notorious term “KKN” in Indonesia, referring in general to these single and combined criminal acts. Corruption is therefore the top priority of our government and a key concern of the public, the press and foreign investors. In 1999 a law was passed to underline the importance that the administration of all state/regional bodies and agencies should be free from corruption, collusion and nepotism (law no 28 year 1999). This law emphasized the active role of the society to support a clean government based on basic principles of good administrative governance.

Although there’s a law about corruption or as we call KKN, white-collar people in Indonesia still doesn’t know how bad and how rude corruption to the so-called low-level people. When corruption is everywhere, we will see the gap and the boundaries between those people, and we will see the social inequality for this. Even though we see those things very crystal clear, the government seems don’t understand or even care to touch the problem. Why would I say things like those? Because we can see the fact, how the low-level people suffer and craving for money when the corrupt-like-I-don’t-care people always and always eat and consume their wealth.

As we see, corruption is a bad thing, but we can’t see a thing just in one side. When we discuss about this, we have strength and weakness about it. The strength about corruption is that we have a low recognition and attention to corruption, including laws. So, because of that, many people will corrupt freely. Corruption also interrupt the stability of economy in Indonesia. But, the weakness of corruption is that some people have strong mind and religion so they know that corruption is the same thing as stealing someone’s money. Because of that principle, they would not touch anything that related to stealing and corruption.

Corruption will always have some impacts, not just to our economics condition but also to our principles and judgements about nowadays government and high-level people. So it will be some personals problem. Some are good, and some are bad. The good impact is that we can open our mind and our eyes to see the condition of Indonesia, and we can make changes from it. But the bad impact is that we keep judging and judging but we can’t do anything because we’re just the people, not government or someone important. So we will see that the bad impact for us is that we can’t do anything about it and when we do something to it, it just vanished and we’re so hopeless and desperate to search the solution for these problems.

There are some things that could start a corruption in Indonesia, such as monopoly, low income and poverty, traditional value, public ignorance, and forms of government.

First one is Monopoly. Well, In Indonesia, bribes are the most common form of corruption in relation to the abbuse of the monopoly function of public sector. As we can see that so many polices are happy to be bribed. Another description about bribe is bribes as the market price which should be paid by consumers to buy certain goods in the form of licences or permits. For example, when we want to have a driving license but our age is not permitted yet, we can buy the fake one. Furthermore, the price will certainly be more expensive if the license or permit applied for is for productive business, whether the permit is required to run a small shop or a big company. This will be the root of corruption in Indonesia and will be hard to be eradicated.

Second is low income and poverty. As we know, we, humans, are basically greedy creatures more than any creatures in the world. We want all. We want everything. We have no boundaries for our wills. So then, it’s very related for this factor, low income and poverty. Why? Because as we know, Poverty, or being paid at a rate inadequate to meet daily basic needs is another factor luring public servants into corruption. As an illustration, Tansil (1980) compared the salary of newly recruited Indonesia police with their counterparts in Greece, (a relatively less rich country in the European context), and also compared the prices of certain goods and services in both countries. Tansil concluded that although the prices of basic goods and services in Indonesia and Greece are similar, the salaries of the Greek police are four times higher than those of Indonesians. So we can see that low income is one of the corruption roots here.

Third is traditional value. It’s obvious that in Indonesia, when we appriciate someone, we give them present or things that he or she likes. But here, in economics, when we give something, it considered as bribing. The most obvious Indonesian example is in the recruitment and promotion of public servants, including military personnel, but also occurs in selection for entry to schools and universities. Rather, it is based on patronage and how big a bribe or so-called ‘thanks-giving’ a candidate can offer to the recruitment and promotion committee. It will lead to monopoly and corruption as well.

The fourth one is public ignorance. Why this factor is one of the most important factor to be recognized? It’s because public perception is another crucial factor determining a nation’s level of corruption. The more apathetic the people are about corruption, the more widespread the government bribery will be. But Indonesian people not always being apathetic, but some just don’t have enough knowledge for corruption. Maybe they care, but it’s possible for the lack of knowledge. And actually, Indonesia has the so-called social inequality. So then, the public servants always see their master as the right person, even when they are corrupting all of the money. What could they do to defend and stand up for their rights? None.

The last is forms of government. Personally, I think our form of government is not as good as other countries form. Why? Still, many corruptions, bribers, and so on. The elections, for example, which have been conducted five times during Soeharto’s presidency have been neither free nor fair because it is evident that bribes and cheating are at work in various forms. We can see that it can lead to corruption and other bad things for Indonesia’s economics.

So corruption in Indonesia is still rooted and it’s a very common and maybe apathetically ordinary for our country. We know that corruption leads to nothing and even to the worst level of Indonesia’s economic condition, so we must find a way out for these corruption and things.

Daftar Pustaka  

http://aimbaruddin.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/corruption-in-indonesia-causes-forms-and-remedies/

http://transparency.ie/discuss/un-convention-against-corruption-strengths-and-weaknesses-gillian-dell

Data Penulis :

Nama : Andini Hertias

NPM : 120110120082

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