Shamed ministries pledge to provide better public service

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 03/31/2008 10:45 AM  |  National

In the wake of the recent survey on the integrity of government offices conducted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), two ministries have said they will use the findings to improve services.

Of 30 government offices surveyed by the KPK, the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights ranked 26th and 30th for providing low quality of public services and being prone to corruption.

Didin Sudirman, secretary of the directorate general overseeing penitentiaries at the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, said here Saturday his office responded positively to the report, saying it could drive it to perform better.

"We admit there are still many penitentiary officials who extort the public," he said.

He put the blame on the officials' low salary and weak supervision from their superiors.

"But the public has been 'supportive' of creating a corruption culture by giving money to the officials," he said.

Didin said many people gave the officials some money to visit their relatives at penitentiaries.

"We will punish the officials, who were proven guilty of accepting the money or rewards," he said.

He said his ministry had planned to launch a compliant service through short messaging service (SMS).

"We have publicized this program among officials but we have not yet officially announced it to the public," he said, adding that senders could use the service to describe institutions where they experienced inconveniences.

Labor Ministry spokesman Subhan said Saturday his ministry would use the KPK report as motivation to provide better services.

"The survey result challenges us in a way that we must work ... to meet the public's expectations," he said.

He added that his ministry had already held a coordination meeting with the KPK last November to discuss how to serve the public and eliminate corruption.

"The KPK gave us a lot of suggestions to serve the public well and prevent corruption acts," he said.

Two weeks ago, Subhan said, his office had officially announced the operation of a branch office overseeing the return of migrants workers at Terminal 3 of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta. The terminal was built for migrant workers only.

"This office will be responsible for recording the migrant workers' arrival from overseas and driving them to their hometowns safely," he said.

However, he said his office still faced problems, particularly with illegal agencies persuading villagers to work overseas and asking for expensive arrangement fees.

"We have intensified a public campaign to urge people to register to work as migrant workers at the local labor ministry offices instead of through agents," he said.

Between August and October last year, the KPK interviewed 3,611 participants regarding the quality of 65 public services across Greater Jakarta.

The survey found the public sectors had a low integrity score of 5.33 of a possible 10, considered worse than public officials' performance in other countries. (ewd)

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