But there is some risk in the road taken. It may lead us away from principles of good governance. The purpose of an internal audit is to provide the head of a government entity the opportunity to improve performance before it becomes an external issue.

But our experience with government in Indonesia at the moment is that increasing performance of entities is becoming an external issue, and therefore an external issue for the internal auditors as well. For this we can thank the diligence of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and its sources, and not the internal auditors.

We recognize very significant improvement in the competencies of most national inspectorates and very many regional ones over the past decade or so. It is now not so much lack of competence of inspectors as lack of bite.

Inspectors face two scenarios if they wish to contribute to improving performance in a corrupt environment. The first is where the head of their reporting entity (the minister, mayor, regent or governor) is corrupt or deliberately fails to demand good performance.

Here inspectors are under pressure from their bosses to fail in their reporting responsibilities, to fail to report, to cover up, or to falsify reports, as their position is under threat. They are not wanted as internal auditors but as colluders.

The second scenario is where the administration is corrupt and negligent. Here inspectors are under pressure from their colleagues, to neglect reporting, cover up, or falsify reports and their wellbeing is under threat. Here even good heads of the reporting entity are also threatened by their own administration, being deliberately isolated from the reality within their entities.

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