South Jakarta Mayor Syahrul Effendi is the richest mayor in the capital with assets total to Rp 12.5 billion (US$1.3 million); equal to the annual budget of the Persija soccer club.
His assets were listed in a report on the 15 wealthiest Jakarta administration officials released by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Wednesday.
Syahrul is much wealthier than Deputy Governor Prijanto, whose listed assets amounted to Rp 4 billion plus US$15,000.
“My assets are shared with my wife, who used to work for a private company before she left her job when I was elected mayor [in 2005],” Syahrul said Wednesday.
Popular for his passion for cycling, Syahrul, who also heads the Indonesian Bicycle Committee, said his biggest assets consisted of land and property, the value of which increases each year.
The average total assets among Jakarta’s other mayors is Rp 4.5 billion.
As mandated by law on clean and corruption-free governance, every government official is obliged to submit wealth reports to the KPK when they enter office and every two years they hold the position.
During the announcement, KPK deputy chairman Haryono Umar said his office found no indication of corruption in the officials’ reports.
“So far, we haven’t seen any evidence that the wealth reports are improper,” he said, adding that his office had to date received around 30 reports of corruption after publicizing the wealth reports of the country’s administrative officials.
The report also disclosed that Governor Fauzi Bowo’s wealth totalled Rp 46.9 billion plus $200,000, making him the city’s richest official.
His assets have grown 20 percent since May 2007, a few months before he was elected governor, when he was worth Rp 38.5 billion.
Like Syahrul, Fauzi said his assets increased in value on the back of soaring land and property prices.
Haryanto said the KPK has asked the administration to become the first local government to establish a center in which people can report any given gratuities, perquisites or gifts received by its civil servants.
“We hope this center will be realized this year,” he said.
On the same day, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) announced its corruption index for the first half of 2010. The report said cases of corruption were found in 27 of the country’s 33 provinces.
Jakarta, which had 16 corruption cases, ranked as the third most corrupt province. The city ranked first in terms of potential losses to the state with Rp 709.5 billion in losses, followed by Lampung with
Rp 408.3 billion and Aceh with Rp 117.7 billion.
Despite not all of the graft cases being perpetrated by government officials, the report concluded there was a likelihood most cases related to the embezzlement of local administrations’ budgets.
The modus operandi of corruption, ICW said, had shifted from misusing budgets in 2009 to outright embezzlement in 2010.
