The Attorney General's Office will scrap 8,000 positions as part of a plan to streamline its bureaucracy in a bid to prevent corruption and abuse of power.

AGO spokesman Jasman Pandjaitan said Sunday his office was assessing which positions would be cut. "We believe the restructuring program is urgent because power tends to corrupt," he said.

The bureaucratic reform means remaining officials will carry out more tasks, he said. "The motto is: fewer structural posts, more functions. Where a position is cut, its tasks will be handled by another position."

Jasman said the AGO was anticipating resistance from prosecutors nationwide.

"A restructuring program like this tends to meet challenges (from officials), so we need to look at this carefully," he said.

The AGO will present its proposal to the administrative reforms minister, the finance minister and the Corruption Eradication Commission in January next year. The program, which it is hoped will restore the AGO's reputation, will become effective when the AGO celebrates its anniversary in July.

Attorney General Hendarman Supandji said earlier he would focus on tackling corruption and improving prosecutors' performance next year to fix what he called a "crisis of credibility" in his institution.

Corruption watchdogs and the Public Prosecution Commission have slammed the AGO for systemic bribery and extortion.

In 2007, the commission received 422 public complaints alleging abuse of power and poor performance by prosecutors, an increase from 398 in the previous year. About 200 of the complaints were referred to the attorney general.

Jasman said corruption within the AGO had contributed to the waning public trust in the law enforcement agency, although added that many people had not noticed the AGO's efforts to combat graft.

"It seems that the public says the entire basket is rotten just because of one or two bad apples," he said.

Assistant attorney general for special crimes Marwan Effendy said the public often blamed his office for moving too slowly on corruption without appreciating the challenges it faced.

"We need an audit from the State Financial Development Comptroller (BPKP) to get an official statement on state losses resulting from corruption allegations, but we only employ 76 forensic auditors to do the job," Marwan said, adding the bureaucratic procedure tended to slow down corruption investigations.

The AGO has also had difficulty obtaining permission from banks to examine suspicious accounts, he said.

"When it comes to investigating high-ranking officials such as regents, mayors and governors, we need to obtain presidential consent, which can take several months," Marwan said.

The AGO recently came under fire for its reluctance to reopen its investigation into the alleged embezzlement of Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support funds, even though a prosecutor who led a probe into one of the major graft cases was convicted of receiving bribes.

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