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Ministry creates award to deter corruption
The Agriculture Ministry has introduced the Corruption-Free Zone (WBK) Award as a way to discourage corruption and promote transparent bureaucracy at every agency under its supervision, a senior official said Thursday
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he Agriculture Ministry has introduced the Corruption-Free Zone (WBK) Award as a way to discourage corruption and promote transparent bureaucracy at every agency under its supervision, a senior official said Thursday.
The ministry's regional officials were briefed on the new award and its requirements by a team from Jakarta during a 2-day meeting which ended Friday at the ministry's provincial office in Denpasar.
"Two main areas for assessing eligibility for the WBK are the unit's performance and financial management," the briefing's organizer Imam Subarkah said.
If the evaluated agency showed good results in these two areas, the WBK team would place it in a 1-month review period. During that period, the team would look into whether any public or formal complaint on alleged corrupt practices had been filed against the agency.
Should the agency pass the review period successfully, the WBK team would nominate it to the Agriculture Minister who would then issue the award decree.
"After the ministerial decision, the agency will once again be subject to review, this time for one year," Imam said.
"If the agency passes the year of monitoring with flying colors, the minister will officially declare it a committed WBK agency."
WBK is the ministry's highest accolade for corruption eradication efforts among its agencies and institutions.
In his statement at the opening of the briefing, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriantono said corruption, collusion and nepotism were still extant in his ministry.
He said the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had recently investigated a corruption case in which his ministry was implicated.
"Although the case is minor, it is still a breach of the law, which embarrasses us."
Separately, the ministry's Inspector General Mulyanto said discrepancies in the ministry's budget allocations were quite minuscule, not more than 0.05 percent of the total budget.
Most of the discrepancies, he added, were not from deliberate corrupt practices but because officials lacked knowledge about regulations governing financial procedures.
"One common mistake is the re-allocation of funds from the agency's travel line to the office supplies line because the office supplies budget is too small," he said.
"It may seem nothing is wrong with a decision like that, but it is breaching the law. That's why we need to be more careful when we draw up the budget and then spend down the funds," he added.
He also warned ministry officials corrupt practices also covered "time corruption", when public officials failed to work in accordance with their assigned working hours.
"This will also be one of the points evaluated by the WBK team. If several officials fail on this point, then their respective agency or institution will take the fall," he stressed.
Mulyanto claimed the WBK Award initiative was the most daring and the first of its kind at the ministry level.
Some 120 ministry officials from across the archipelago attended, including regional representatives from Bali, Central Java, Central Kalimantan, East Nusa Tenggara, East Java, West Nusa Tenggara and Yogyakarta.
