Indonesia is the equal seventh most corrupt of 69 countries surveyed by Transparency International for its 2009 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB), with the country’s legislative body singled out as the most corrupt public institution.
The survey, titled “Global Corruption Barometer 2009”, polled a total of 73,132 respondents in 69 countries from October last year to March this year on their opinion of six institutions: political parties, parliament or legislative bodies, businesses and the private sector, the media, public officials and the judiciary.
The scale or ranking ranges from most to the least corrupt, with five being the most corrupt and one being the cleanest.
In Indonesia, the organization asked for opinions from 500 people living in Jakarta and Surabaya between Nov. 11 and Nov. 20 last year.
Indonesia scored a 3.7 on average, making it the equal seventh most corrupt country with the United States and Italy.
Indonesia's House of Representatives is considered the most corrupt institution, scoring 4.4 on the survey, followed by the judiciary, with 4.1. The country’s political parties and state officials were ranked an equal 4.0, while the media followed with a ranking of 2.3.
The score was worse than the 2007 GCB, which scored 14 sectors in Indonesia a 3.3 on average. Transparency International did not carry out a GCB survey in 2008.
Out of 12 countries surveyed in the Asia Pacific region, Indonesia was considered more corrupt than Singapore (2.2), Thailand (3.3), Malaysia (3.4) and the Philippines (3.4), but cleaner than Japan (3.9) and South Korea (3.9).
The House was regarded as the most corrupt institution in the country, due to a number of recent corruption cases implicating lawmakers, observers attending the launching of the report said.
Legislator Gayus Lumbuun of the House’s legal commission said he accepted the survey's results, “this institution indeed deserves to be called corrupt”.
The Corruption Court has convicted numerous lawmakers of corruption over the past year, including Yusuf Erwin Faishal, Al Amien Nur Nasution, Sarjan Tahir, Hamka Yandhu and Anthony Zeidra Abidin.
Secretary-general of Indonesia’s chapter of TI, Teten Masduki, however, said the public considered corruption eradication efforts in Indonesia to be quite effective.
A majority of 74 percent of respondents said corruption eradication efforts were effective, 19 percent said it was ineffective; 7 percent abstained.
“This may be related to the Corruption Eradication Commission's [KPK] achievements,” Teten said.
However, he added, if the KPK remains focused on cases involving regents, mayors and regional administration officials, their efforts will be in vain.
“The commission will only aim at scapegoats and not the real perpetrators”.
He expects the survey will be used as a reference point for making policy reforms and improving institutions.
“Basically, all countries in this world cannot escape from corruption, so the question is: How strong is the commitment of a country’s government to eradicate corruption?”
