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n Dec. 9, the world, including Indonesia, will celebrate International Anti-Corruption Day, which was declared after the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2003.

In commemorating the event, we may reflect what we have done so far to fight corruption, at least in our own country. Despite the fact that Indonesia has been unable to remove its infamous billing as one of the most corrupt nations in the world, we need to remain confident that such embarrassment will one day be over.

Based on surveys, Transparency International (TI) has consistently placed Indonesia on the list of the most corrupt countries in the world along with China, Iran, Vietnam and some other Asian developing economies. Compared with developed countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, we are a far cry from being recognized as a country where disclosure is a culture. Even with the Southern European countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece, Asian values seem not equal to great European philosophy.

Unfortunately, in spite of the controversy over the changing methodology of measurement from year to year and the potentially unreliable sources of information utilized during the surveys, many people still believe the corruption perception index of countries released by TI reflects a country’s real level of corruption.

With such contempt, most Indonesians will naturally feel inferior and lack confidence when interacting with their counterparts from other countries, particularly the ones with a better level of corruption perception according to TI.

But in fact, in opposition to what most people see, those countries labeled as being among the most corrupt ones are apparently more secure economically as they have freed themselves from the confinement of twisting debt, which unbelievably still occurs among countries that so far are ranked as less corrupt.

Ever since the monetary crisis in the late 1990s, Indonesia has astonishingly rejected offers of financial aid from IMF and preferred to manage its own problems as it does not accept the intervention of external institutions in its policymaking. This has made Indonesia subject to the risk of not being offered any financial aid from anywhere. Not to mention the possible alienation in international trading and global collaboration that could become a side effect.

But the dream of getting rid of all the strings that hold us back from becoming an independent country with financial sovereignty has led Indonesia to the path that most countries with similar conditions would naturally avoid.

Anyway, such bravery has eventually paid off. With its own strength and capacity to get through the crisis, Indonesia unbelievably rebuilt its own economy. Right now, without entirely excluding factors such as various controversies over the present and future public leadership that could re-ignite economic default, Indonesians can at least exhale and feel relieved for a while. Moreover, with its diminishing external debts, which total no more than a quarter of its annual GDP, Indonesia has a very low risk of financial default.

Indonesia is very different from countries now suffering from or threatened by economic default such as Greece, Iceland, Spain and even the US, whose external debt and GDP ratios amount to 100 percent or higher.

Some of us may realize that corruption has some roots that we ordinarily overlook or neglect to deal with. These roots of evil may derive from various causes. But we would all agree that those causes trigger acts of corruption only when there is access to large amounts of money.

To break this chain of corruption all institutions should utilize excessive funds to pay off the debts they hold. By doing so, they do not only retire various costs of debt, but also keep away the temptation of idle funds. Although it is almost impossible to believe that some funds are idle, any excessively allocated fund is technically idle, and therefore should be subject to evaluation.

That effort in paying off debts, is fruitful in other ways. The Indonesian economy is growing quite rapidly, so are those of China, Laos, Iraq and Vietnam, so that it can achieve a steady annual GDP growth. Meanwhile, countries known to be less corrupt such as Greece, Spain and many Western countries, including the US, have to accept the reality that their debts are putting them at high risk of financial default and that their economic growth is not as fast as their Eastern counterparts, which are known as the most corrupt nations.

We are not saying that TI has been drinking the kool-aid and neglecting important potential factors in its measurement of the corruption perception index. We also do not deny that perceptions formed by TI might have been triggered by various events that could lead to biased assumptions.

 However, we wish to introduce a whole new perspective in assessing the value of good governance, namely that we should not only see a country and its imperfections from the perspective of others, but also from the liberty that it has achieved. The liberty from the fear of financial default.
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Agung Firman Sampurna is a member of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and Dwi Hendro Widayatmoko is a lecturer at Esa Unggul University, Jakarta. The views expressed are their own.