17 June 2008

Corruption In The Office of the Attorney General -- Indonesia

The politicians of this vast land have decided to weigh in on the corruption debate that afflicts the Office of the Attorney General. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it does very much seem to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black!

There is no doubt that the Office of the Attorney General has serious corruption problems. The most recent case is testament to that fact. It is also testament to the fallacy of the claims made by the current Attorney General, Hendarman Supandji, that he was going to clean up the image of the Office and make it corruption free. This is a fallacy because some of the Attorney General's own appointments are implicated in serious corruption.

Nevertheless, despite the title of this post and the above paragraph. Perhaps rather than singling out the Attorney General on corruption there is a need for the House of Representatives or the DPR to be a little more introspective and clean up their own backyard first. With a general election coming up in 2009 there are already rumblings of money politics being heard around the traps. It is expected that the "fees" required to get on some tickets is going to increase this cycle. This means that there is still a belief in some circles that a ticket to Senayan is a ticket to the big pay day and a life lived in the lap of luxury.

As I said, the Office of the Attorney General needs to clean house, no doubt about it. But if we are going to talk about cleaning house then it needs to be across the board. The DPR needs to get their collective heads out of the sand and the individual parties must take a "real" stand against corruption rather than just pay continual lip service to an ideal for which they do not really aspire.

If you play with fire for long enough eventually you will get burned!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny that you wrote about this Rob.

I met the ex-Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh last Sunday at the embassy's food bazaar here in Copenhagen (he's the new ambassador to Denmark). I brought my friend, who is also a journalist with me, and when he saw us coming, he recognised us (our daily beat was both at the National Police Headquarters and Attorney General Office) and immediately cut us "Don't ask me about corruption cases, let's talk about "lumpia" instead (lumpia = springrolls, because we were just standing next to lumpia stand).

Oh well, I guess he still freaked out whenever he saw journalists around.

Oh never mind that, but I do have a "higher" hopes at Hendarman Supandji as the new AG. I knew him before and talked with him quite a lot when he was still in his previous position (I forgot the title in English). I think he's pretty honest man

Rob Baiton said...

He might be an honest man but those around him are certainly letting him down big time!

The pressure is on for SBY to remove him and appoint someone else.

The problem is that the "problem" is bigger than any one man or one woman. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the constant game of musical chairs at the top of the food chain willever install any confidence down the food chain that things will change.

Salam buat Pak Arman iya. He knows me from hukumonline.

Anonymous said...

You're right. It's a tough job indeed being an honest man standing alone.

I'll send your regards to him next time I go to the embassy!

Anonymous said...

a few years ago saya dengar soal program pembaharuan kejaksaan, tapi kemana program tersebut yaa?

Rob Baiton said...

Anggara...

Masih ada "program" itu! You cannot see the positive changes? Masa?

Anonymous said...

@rob
but with this corruption issues involving the high rank official of the attorney general office, so does the program works?

Rob Baiton said...

I would suggest that the program does not work or it is not as effective as it could be.

But I have to say the Prez now has an opportunity to clean house. This is not just an opportunity for some spring cleaning, this is an opportunity to cut out all the dead wood and start afresh.

There would be public support for the Prez to do so and coming into an election year it also makes sense.

However, his PR people are worthless and they are constantly and consistently letting good PR opportunities slip by. Maybe they are being paid better money by others to let the Prez suffer?

Cheers