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awmakers slammed the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) for its lack of a comprehensive plan to deal with rampant narcotics-related crime, a situation that President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo recently described as a national emergency.

Although the majority of lawmakers from the House of Representatives Commission III overseeing legal affairs, human rights and security applauded Jokowi'€™s firm policy of executing convicted drug smugglers, few of them were convinced by the narcotics agency'€™s plan to achieve the government'€™s ambitious target of making Indonesia drug free this year.

The lawmakers'€™ pessimism was partly due to the ongoing distribution of drugs from prisons, which, it is believed, is protected by officials.

They bombarded the BNN with queries on the matter at a hearing on Monday, Masinton Pasaribu of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) claimed that '€œthe BNN appears to have done nothing special to counter these extraordinary crimes'€.

Nasir Djamil of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) went so far as to allege that BNN members may have played a role in drug distribution from prison.

Human rights campaigners have also cited the involvement of prison guards in drug distribution as an argument against the government'€™s insistence on imposing the death penalty on drug convicts.

BNN chief Comr. Gen. Anang Iskandar admitted that such practices were commonplace in several prisons in the country but rejected it as an argument against the death penalty.

'€œIt happens but the government has definitely punished corrupt prison guards,'€ Anang said.

He further explained that drug distribution from prison was possible through the use of communication tools, a ban on which the government might impose in the near future.

To promote the government'€™s massive fight against narcotics, Anang reiterated the target of rehabilitating 100,000 drug addicts every year while at the same time proceeding with the firm policy of executing drug smugglers.

Anang told lawmakers that the rampant distribution of drugs in Indonesia was ensnaring ever more addicts, which currently amounts to 5.6 million.

Whereas, according to the BNN, there were only 4 million people, or 2.2 percent of the total population, who used drugs in 2011.

Under President Jokowi'€™s administration, the government has implemented tougher measures on drug offenders.

The President has said he will not grant clemency to drug traffickers who are on death row, prompting the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) to execute six convicts last month, five of whom were foreign nationals.

The AGO recently revealed the names of 11 death-row convicts on its soon-to-be-executed list, which include two Australian nationals '€” Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Indonesian drug trafficker Zainal Abidin and three Indonesian murder convicts '€” Syofial, Sargawi and Harun '€” are also on the list of inmates set to face the firing squad at Nusakambangan Penitentiary in Cilacap, Central Java.

The Australian government as well as human rights campaigners have urged the government to cancel the executions, appeals which have so far fallen on deaf ears.

British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford, who is among the 11 convicts, has sent an open letter to UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who is scheduled to visit the country this month.

'€œThe UK strongly opposes the death penalty in all circumstances without exception. We have made representations about the death penalty to the Indonesian government, and we will continue to do so,'€ said a spokesman for the British embassy in Jakarta, as quoted by the BBC.

'€” JP/Margareth S. Aritonang