AWARD GIVING: One of the Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award Association founders, Shanti Poesposoetjipto (right), speaks to reporters in Jakarta on Wednesday, accompanied by (second right to left) Natalia Soebagjo, Teten Masduki and Betti Alisjahbana, at a press conference about plans to announce the award recipient in Jakarta on Oct. 28. (JP/J. Adiguna)
The Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award committee is looking for a few good bureaucrats and is inviting nominations from the public for this year's honors.
Teten Masduki, coordinator of Indonesian Corruption Watch and member of the award committee, said this year's search was focusing on officials from the finance and law enforcement sectors because of the strong temptations in those fields.
"Corruption in these two sectors can have a major impact on many other aspects of life," Teten said Wednesday.
"If individuals from these two sectors can set a good example, then they will create benchmarks for officials from other sectors."
Teten said the aim of this year's award was to support "corruption-free" government.
The Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award, established in 2003, has previously gone to individuals from private and non-governmental sectors, as well as from regional administrations.
One previous winner, who received the award in 2004, was Gamawan Fauzi, the then Solok regent who was honored for fighting corruption and enforcing a clean administration.
Gamawan, who is now governor of West Sumatra, issued fundamental policies on licensing, which allow the public to obtain 32 permits in a shorter time and with a transparent fee scale. He also abolished project honorariums, which had been paid to regency employees, including the regent.
Betti Alisjahbana, another committee member, said unlike the Corruption Eradication Commission, which took a punitive approach to handling corruption, the award's steering committee used a positive approach by honoring those who were corruption-free and committed to fighting corruption.
"We want to show the public not everything that happens in the country is bad, and there are still some honest bureaucrats," she said.
According to the head of the panel of judges, Natalia Soebagjo, the committee has no set number of winners of this prestigious award, which will be bestowed on Oct. 28 in Jakarta.
She said winners would be selected based on their strong personal commitment to the fight against corruption, the actions they had taken to eradicate corruption and the impact of those actions on corruption.
"We will not award the winners cash prizes, but we'll support their programs on anti-corruption," she said, adding the winners would hold road shows across the country in support of the anti-corruption campaign.
Interested individuals or groups can get more information on this award and download nomination forms from www.bhaca.org. (dia)
