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Judiciary the worst in graft: KPK survey
The judiciary has been singled out as the most corrupt of public institutions in Indonesia, while state pawnshops come out the cleanest, a survey by the country's antigraft body revealed Wednesday
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The judiciary has been singled out as the most corrupt of public institutions in Indonesia, while state pawnshops come out the cleanest, a survey by the country's antigraft body revealed Wednesday.
The integrity survey was conducted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) between June and September last year.
It involved 105 public service units at 40 ministries and institutions at the national level, and 52 at municipal and regency levels across 20 provinces.
The survey ranks institutions on a scale of 1-10, where 1 means highly corrupt and 10 means graft-free.
The three district courts in West Jakarta, North Jakarta and Central Jakarta were rated lowest, with scores ranging from 2.52 and 4.47.
The Finance Ministry's State Treasury Office came in second, followed by the Justice and Human Rights Ministry's Penitentiaries Institution.
The study also found the most evidence of bribery in state electricity firm PLN and the National Land Agency (BPN).
“The average score of 6.84 at the national level is higher than in the 2007 integrity survey, which had an average score of 5.53," KPK deputy chairman Mochammad Jasin said at the survey's launch.
"But the score is considered worse than the integrity level of public sectors in other countries.”
For the survey, the KPK interviewed 9,390 direct users of public services, including 3,150 at the national level.
“More than 30 percent of respondents admitted to paying extra fees for services at this level,” Jasin said.
He added the survey also revealed the public was still "permissive" toward corrupt behavior.
“Some 54 percent of respondents considered paying 'extra fees' for services as acceptable,” he said, adding that an interesting discovery was that 52 percent said they paid bribes based on a "mutual agreement" between officials and themselves as consumers.
Only 28 percent said "extra fees" were paid at the initiative of serving officials.
Jasin said the reasons for bribery ranged from the common perception that paying "small money" was not corruption, to a lack to ineffective punishment for public servants.
He added most institutions at the national level had yet to launch antigraft efforts, with 65 percent of respondents saying they had never witnessed such campaigns at the service units they visited.
The survey shows the cleanest institutions include the state pawn shops, the Health Ministry, the postal firms and the Foreign Ministry.
Last month, Transparency International Indonesia released a survey that found the highest levels of bribery were in the police force, while judicial corruption was the most costly.
