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resident Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s plan to pardon past financial crimes in exchange for repatriating dirty assets parked overseas by criminal offenders has been met with rejection from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

The government seeks to coax criminal offenders, including money laundering, corruption and tax evasion perpetrators, to bring home their assets parked abroad, including around Rp 4 quadrillion (US$300 billion) in Singapore alone, in exchange for clearing them of legal charges, in the hope of having a slice of around 10 to 15 percent of the would-be repatriated assets to help build the economy.

PPATK deputy chairman Agus Santoso said that instead of helping the economy, such a policy would encourage the birth of more financial violators in the future.

'€œThis policy sends messages to criminal offenders that they are about to be given a '€˜red carpet'€™ facility and they will be considered economic heroes. This will hurt the feelings of the public whose money has been stolen by criminal violators,'€ Agus told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Agus said that the PPATK rejected the plan because implementing such a policy would not be feasible in Indonesia, a country which has rejected illegal money for development.

Agus said it was not easy to repatriate dirty assets from abroad because most of the funds had been channeled into properties and companies, and could no longer be wired back to the country in a short time.

The former Bank Indonesia (BI) official said as Indonesia applied a free foreign exchange policy, BI could not hold any in-and-out funds from abroad, meaning that financial criminals could immediately move their assets overseas again as soon as they had been pardoned by the government.

'€œThis policy will only benefit investment management companies in Singapore, which have the ability to send and take back money from the Indonesian capital market, and securities companies in Indonesia,'€ he said.

Agus added that the amnesty plan would not help the economy because around 60 percent of regional heads committed corruption and laundered their ill-gotten gains abroad.

Thus, he said, if their assets were repatriated under the proposed scheme, the government would only get around 10 to 15 percent of the assets, adding that it was better for the government to intensify efforts to fully seize dirty assets abroad and charge the financial violators for their offenses instead of welcoming them back home and getting only a slice of their assets.

'€œIn the last three years, the dirty asset task force has actively hunted ill-gotten gains parked abroad including in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and England,'€ Agus said.

Instead of going ahead with the amnesty policy, the government, said Agus, should increase the current tax ratio which only stands at 11 to 12 percent over GDP, unlike other countries which managed to stand at around 26 percent to 30 percent.

Separately, acting KPK deputy chief Indriyanto Seno Adji said that if the government went ahead with the plan, it would create legal discrimination for those financial violators who had been convicted and whose assets had been fully seized by the courts.

'€œThe plan has been subject to debate since the early Reformation Era. Legal experts still question the effectiveness of the plan including what kind of crimes should be pardoned and which others should not be,'€ Indriyanto said.

Earlier, Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said that a bill on a tax amnesty was expected to be deliberated this year. The bill would allow financial crimes to be exempt from all criminal and financial charges, in exchange for the beneficiaries repatriating their assets.

According to McKinsey, which was hired by Bank Mandiri to carry out a study, the Rp 4 quadrillion in Singapore comprises Rp 2 quadrillion in assets and another Rp 2 quadrillion in cash, besides funds in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.