Efforts to end corruption in major cities are appearing to bear fruit, according to the latest corruption perception index (CPI) released by graft watchdog Transparency International Indonesia (TII).

The watchdog interviewed 1,200 businesspeople in 12 major cities across the country and found that the average score increased from 54.7 in 2015 to 60.8 this year.

Major cities included in the study are, among the Bandung in West Java, Medan in North Sumatra, Makassar in South Sulawesi, Pontianak in West Kalimantan and North Jakarta.

“The index shows several improvements were made by regional administrations,” TII research department manager Wawan Sujatmiko told reporters on Wednesday.

The survey measured five indicators as perceived by businesspeople: graft prevalence, public accountability, corruption motivation, the impact of corruption and the effectiveness of graft eradication efforts.

Wawan said the index showed that anticorruption bodies had been more effective in fighting illicit practices across the country and that public trust in them had improved.

“There have been efforts to improve public services, particularly those related to the interaction between businesspeople and the government. The process to get permits and the regulations have been reformed,” he said.

Apart from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the illegal levies eradication task force (Saber Pungli), which has teams set up in local administrations nationwide, was established by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in October 2016 to purge the nation’s bureaucracy of illegal levies.

The teams are required to coordinate and communicate intensively with the central task force under the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister in Jakarta.

As of November, the task force has carried out 1,316 raids in cases implicating local officials, according to task force head Comr. Gen. Dwi Priyatno. More than 300 of the cases were sent to court for trial, he said as quoted by Antara recently.

According to TII, certain regions are more effective than others in tackling petty corruption cases.

North Jakarta, for example, scored highest in the 2017 index, showing that there were “changes in the perception of businesspeople regarding public services” in the city.

“On the other hand, the index also shows that there were several cities that need to do more in the corruption eradication campaign,” Wawan said, referring to, among other cities, the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan, which scored the lowest at 37.4, a sharp decrease from 57 in 2015.

Medan is, therefore, perceived as the most corrupt city, according to the index.

Bandung in West Java scored high relative to other cities in gaining the trust of businesspeople. The city got a score of 57.9 this year, a significant increase from 39 in 2015. However, Bandung also scored the highest in bribery costs, which comprised 10.8 percent of the city’s total production costs. Makassar, meanwhile, scored the lowest in bribery at 1.8 percent.

Wawan said the law enforcers might be hindered by businesspeople taking the practice of bribing officials as “business as usual.”

“They become accepting of the illicit practices as, for example, they are perceived as a necessary part of conducting business in Indonesia,” he said.

Responding to the scores in the index, the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) said the improvements were in line with Jokowi’s commitment to fighting graft through simplifying the issuance of business permits.

“Apart from the businesspeople, we also need to get perspectives from other people regarding the index in order to create a more sustainable solution,” said Bappenas official Diani Sadiawati.

Popular

Banks still 'cautious' about lending to high-risk MSMEs

Long nights in the Jakarta streets

Finance Ministry to offer low-interest loans for regional projects