Suspending oficials implicated in corruption cases Robert Endi Jaweng   ;   Executive Director of Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD), Jakarta

                                                JAKARTA POST,  21 Januari 2014

                                                                              

                                                                                                                       

There is likely no other country apart from Indonesia where public officials are sworn into office while being behind bars.  Jefferson Rumajar, the former mayor of Tomohon municipality, North Sulawesi, for instance, was sworn in while still a convict for corruption in January 2011.  Khamamik, the former regent of Mesuji, Lampung province, was officially installed at the Menggala penitentiary in Lampung. The debate continues whether Hambit Bintih should be sworn in as Gunung Mas regent considering his status as a suspect in the bribery case of Akil Mochtar, the former chief justice of the Constitutional Court.  Let alone resigning from public office, our law strengthens a suspect’s survival in his or her predicament.  It is naive to expect resignation in this country. As an editorial in this newspaper noted, power is so sought after that people fight to hold onto it at all costs. Entering the 14th year of decentralization, scores of officials have been caught involved in graft. About 300 mayors, regents and governors who served from 2004 to 2013 appear to have stumbled into this serious crime, the latest being Governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah of Banten.  About 2,000 members of national and local legislative bodies have had to deal with the law either as witnesses, suspects or corruption convicts, not to mention high-ranking bureaucrats, including agency heads or their deputies, who have also been embroiled in graft with no less fantastic amounts of money than governors or legislators.  Ironically, signs of corruption among the above suspects and convicts could be detected long before they officially gained their positions in the government or state bodies.  Trials have revealed how during their terms in office, they were busy paying off debts and redeeming capital through stealing from the local budget, rent seeking practices in business licensing and procurement and so on. The prevention and eradication of corruption is not receiving optimum support. Basic legislation such as Law No. 32/2004 on regional administrations does not effectively prevent, let alone provide, a deterrent effect for graft.  Prevention is difficult if the setting and implementation of integrity and public scrutiny are not guaranteed at the local administration level, making it difficult to manage decentralization in an accountable and participatory manner. On the other hand, the regulation on local autonomy is also not fully in line with the spirit of eradicating corruption. The law does not see corruption as an extraordinary crime that requires extraordinary efforts to face.  While Article 12 of the Law No. 30/2002 on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) stipulates that suspension from office starts when a public official becomes a suspect, Law No.32/2004 imposes sanctions after the case is brought to court, when the person is declared a defendant. Unfortunately, the legal basis for the determination of alleged corruption, either charged or proven, refers to the 2004 Regional Administration Law, so while we have about 176 suspects who have or are serving as mayors, regents, governors or their deputies, they cannot be dismissed and remain in office, despite being reprehensible. Worse, a suspect who is an elected candidate or reelected incumbent can still be appointed as governor, regent or mayor — even in prison. For the sake of rigid legal and administrative procedures of government, we have been willing to injure public ethical principles and moral virtues. Despite discussions at the House of Representatives on how the Regional Administration Law should be revised, issues like what to do with regional heads becoming criminal suspects have gone unnoticed.  The emphasis of the revision is still around issues like authority and governmental design, the repositioning of local legislative bodies and strengthening the province. The current momentum of revising the law should be further seen in the framework of major problems that are systemic in government: poor governance and massive corruption in the regions. To that end, the essence of revision must start from the way of looking at corruption as an extraordinary and systemic crime. Articles in the laws should be derived from the mainstreaming of anti-corruption and the promotion of good governance.  In terms of preventative aspects, this means upholding the system of integrity, including the functioning of internal governmental control instruments such as city audit agencies (Bawasda) and the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP), effective control authority by the central government, as well as open access to public scrutiny. In terms of repressive aspects, the consequences of taking legal action over corruption practices against local officials also means the subjugation of decentralization regulations to corruption regulations as lex specialis, the special laws on corruption.  Thus, the articles regarding suspension or dismissal in Law No. 32/2004 should no longer set new norms related to the stages of the case, for instance, but only set follow-up governmental administrative procedures concerning the intended dismissal of the official concerned. The suspension of an official implicated in graft should therefore not have to wait for the official defendant status; suspension could be conducted while still at the stage of an investigation as a suspect is within the sphere of authority of the KPK. The important issue is that whatever the status of a local official, when dealing with the legal process — whether in detention or being allowed to move freely in the region, his or her concentration in taking up administrative duties is certainly disrupted.  Further, a suspect who is allowed to remain in office can actually take advantage of office facilities for the benefit of his or her case — potentially leading to a new case of graft.  It is time to fundamentally organize the integrity system for the prevention of corruption, as well as strictly enforce harsh provisions. The momentum to mainstream anticorruption and the promotion of governance accountability in the regions must begin with today’s revision process of the Regional Autonomy Law. ●