Political party funding not transparent: TII

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 11/12/2009 8:11 AM  |  National

Transparency International Indonesia (TII) revealed here Wednesday that political parties had not been transparent about their sources of political funding, raising concerns about the integrity of legislators.  

TII, Indonesia’s branch of the Berlin-based corruption watchdog, surveyed seven political parties that competed in April’s legislative elections, and found deep flaws in the transparency and accountability of campaign funds for several political parties.  

The survey used a method called Crinis to measure the level of transparency in the political financing practices of the parties during the 2009 legislative election campaign and the 2004 presidential election.

TII surveyor, Franky Simanjuntak, told a press conference that Indonesia scored 3.9, or satisfactory, on the Crinis Index, falling behind Bangladesh with 4.4, but ahead of Nepal, which scored 2.9.
“All of the parties surveyed refused to provide their annual financial reports when we requested them,” he said, adding that surveyors then tried requesting the documents by acting as ordinary citizens, such as students and journalists.

“The law says that parties must make these reports available to the public, but they always provided different reasons to avoid issuing the reports,” he said.

The 2008 law on political parties stipulates that parties must make their financial income and spending reports public.

The seven parties surveyed included President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura).

“Their unwillingness to provide their financial reports to the public could be seen as an indication that they received illegal funding,” Franky said.

“This has a great effect on the quality of the parties’ representatives that are at the House of Representatives.

“It is sad to consider that the institution that is supposed to be representative of the people is more likely to represent the capital owners that supported the parties,” he added.

The Crinis study also revealed there was a lack of regulations concerning the bookkeeping practises of political parties.

“The laws on political parties and on general elections have very few articles that regulate bookkeeping standards,” Franky said.

However, TII found that, in practice, parties applied a slightly better bookkeeping system than what the law requires.

The study also found that political parties rarely made their financial reports public.

“They only issue their financial reports once every five years, when the general elections occur,” he said.

The 2008 election law requires parties to provide financial reports to the national polling body before participating in the elections.

Franky lamented that parties had never received sanctions for their unclear financial activities.
“The existing laws do not regulate a sanction mechanism,” Franky said.

Therefore, TII recommended the laws on political parties and on general elections be revised.

“The government must handout sanctions to parties that violate the laws on political funding,” he said.

TII also surveyed several companies, such as PT Freeport Indonesia, Bank Central Asia, Bank Mandiri, and media groups PT Media Nusantara Citra and the Kompas-Gramedia Group, requesting details of their donations to political parties.

None admitted to donating money to political parties. (adh)

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