http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/trust-in-govt-on-graft-at-new-low/489958 Trust in Govt on Graft at New Low Agus Triyono &Ulma Haryanto | January 09, 2012
Muhammad Nazaruddin during his trial at the Corruption Court in Jakarta in November. A new survey shows public faith in the government on its attempts to stamp out graft are at a new low. (Reuters Photo/Beawiharta) Corruption eradication may be at the top of the president’s agenda, but a new survey out on Sunday found public trust in the government’s efforts to eradicate graft had reached a new low. Of the 1,220 people questioned by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) last month, only 44 percent said they were satisfied with corruption eradication efforts under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration. “In previous years, the public’s perception of the government’s performance [on corruption eradication] was always above 50 percent,” said Dodi Ambardi, the executive director of LSI. In 2008, public satisfaction with corruption eradication efforts stood at 77 percent. But this quickly slid to 59 percent the next year, when the Rp 6.7 trillion ($737 million) Bank Century bailout scandal erupted, and to 52 percent the year after, when a House of Representatives inquiry into the bailout appeared to be superficial. “If we take the number who aren’t satisfied from those who are, this year [the government] got its first minus,” LSI researcher Burhanuddin Muhtadi said. However, the survey also revealed that the decline in public confidence in graft eradication efforts also meant a decline in trust in the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which is often referred to as the only law enforcement institution the public can trust. Only about 38.5 percent of the respondents believed that the KPK was corruption-free. The National Police was more trusted than the KPK, with the backing of 39.3 percent of the respondents. More surprising is that more than half the respondents (57 percent) believed that the National Army (TNI) was “clean.” The president came in second, trusted by 51 percent of the respondents. A survey in October by another institution, the Indonesian Voice Network (JSI), also revealed that the KPK’s popularity was dwindling unlike the police’s. LSI blamed the many unresolved corruption cases for the KPK’s bad public image. “The main cause was that [the government] was not able to solve corruption scandals such as Century, [Muhammad] Nazaruddin, and the bribery in the selection of the deputy governor for Bank Indonesia in 2004,” Dodi said. In addition to that, he added, the fact that several KPK leaders were suspected of involvement in Nazaruddin’s case worsened the commission’s reputation. “Lack of coverage in the media on corruption in the military is also to blame,” Dodi said. “The media is the supplier of information, but no news on corruption doesn’t mean it’s not there.” Even so, he added, the public’s trust in the KPK’s new leadership, headed by Abraham Samad and others selected last month by the House, remains high. “Around 65 percent of the respondents who followed the selection of the new chairmen believed that the new KPK lineup would do better than the previous one,” Dodi said. In response to this finding, KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto said that under the new leadership, the KPK should be able to develop renewed efforts to eradicate corruption through not only the prosecution of corruption cases, but also prevention. “The KPK, in the future, should begin to put its perception of corruption in a wider context, so that it not only focuses on enforcement but also long-term prevention,” Bambang said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: prole...@egroups.com Subscribe : proletar-subscr...@egroups.com Unsubscribe : proletar-unsubscr...@egroups.com List owner : proletar-ow...@egroups.com Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: proletar-dig...@yahoogroups.com proletar-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: proletar-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
