C

em>Courtesy of Duncan Graham What does a corruption-buster do when hassled for a backhander?

Pay up and get back to business because protests waste time and temper '€” or berate the official and call the cops?

Raising Cain isn'€™t smart when the gouger wears a uniform.

This was the dilemma faced by Transparency International'€™s Frenky Simanjuntak when being fingerprinted by the police for a clean slate certificate required for a foreign scholarship.

'€œTo be honest, I paid the Rp 10,000 [US$1.02],'€ he said. '€œIt wasn'€™t a legal charge but I reasoned the money would have gone into the staff fund. Some argue this is disguised welfare for people on low wages '€” but it'€™s still wrong.

'€œThough the police have the highest bribery rate in Indonesia with up to 40 percent corrupt according to TI research, I have a little sympathy for their dilemma. In some cases they have cars but no fuel, so resort to shaking down motorcyclists for gas to maintain their patrols. Reform must be integrated.'€

Big corruptors outrage the electorate and inflame headlines with their gross behaviour, but it'€™s the petty everyday graspers who are hardest to eradicate because they'€™re tolerated by the public as the price of doing business.

'€œCorruption thrived for the 30-odd years of Soeharto,'€ said the former manager of TI'€™s economic governance department in Indonesia, '€œbut decentralization has made the problem worse.

'€œWe are making progress in countering corruption, though it'€™s a slow process. There'€™s a strong need for education about the damage caused to the country, but so far most effort has been put into prosecution.'€

Indonesia ranks alongside Egypt at 118 according to TI'€™s corruption perception index, slipping down from 100 the previous year. New Zealand, Finland and Denmark are the least corrupt, all at number one. The US ranks 13th.

TI is a non-profit operating in more than 100 countries to promote good governance. It is funded by agencies, governments and individuals and publishes its donor list on the Internet.

Frenky, 38, quit his job in Jakarta this year after winning a New Zealand government scholarship to study public policy. He listed transparency, ease of information access and good law enforcement as key factors in clean administration.

Shortly after arriving in the South Pacific nation, he saw the media hounding of a government politician who had been rude to a hotel waiter. Public distaste of the policymaker'€™s behavior forced the man to quit parliament. Commented Frenky wryly: '€œThat would not have happened in Indonesia.

'€œOur education system is a disgrace. Schooling is not about understanding integrity but rote learning. We should be teaching honesty and accountability from the very beginning.

'€œAt TI, I worked with the private sector in anti-corruption projects. Foreign bosses often asked: '€˜How can we do anything here without paying bribes?'€™

'€œThe answer is to join with other companies where all agree not to support corruption. Overseas countries that have laws prohibiting their nationals from bribing public servants in Indonesia and elsewhere are effective. They provide the initiative for business people to work together.'€

Before joining TI Frenky worked as a researcher with another NGO, the now-defunct Center for East Indonesian Affairs under sociologist Ignas Kleden.

The center closed when overseas funding evaporated, though not before Frenky had spent six years on conflict resolution in Kalimantan between indigenous Dayaks and Madurese transmigrants, and in Ambon between Muslims and Christians.

He was involved in voter education projects leading to the 2004 election in Papua, a province he first visited as an anthropology student from the University of Indonesia (UI).

'€œThe things I'€™d heard about Papua were very scary, but that wasn'€™t true,'€ he said. '€œThey are intelligent and funny people and I really enjoy their company.

'€œThere has to be a peaceful resolution to the problems after pulling out the military. But I don'€™t want to see West Papua secede.'€ His wife Florencia Yuniferti also works as a university researcher in the province.

Frenky'€™s track into the dirty world of corruption started as a child when he read British writer George Orwell'€™s famous allegorical novel Animal Farm in English, a language he'€™d been encouraged to study by his parents.

'€œFor me, politicians were like the pigs in the book,'€ he said. '€œThey talk glibly and make lots of promises. There'€™s always the possibility of change, however dire the situation.'€

The exception on his loathe list is former president Abdurrahman '€œGus Dur'€ Wahid '€” '€œa powerful Muslim leader with an open-minded approach.'€

Frenky'€™s father, an executive with a fertiliser company, traveled widely overseas, returning with books and stories of a wider world to stimulate the imagination of his four children.

The Christian Batak family moved from Palembang in South Sumatra to the capital when Frenky was a babe, so he considers himself a Jakartan raised in an ethnically diverse district where, he said, he never experienced prejudice.

At university he demonstrated for democracy and became a political activist, though '€œnot hard core, and never arrested'€. He started working for NGOs '€œbecause I felt a responsibility to be an agent of change '€” and wanted to work where it matters'€.

Though shrinking from the idealist label he added: '€œI want to contribute something, to myself, the people around me '€” and the community.'€

After two years studying public policy in New Zealand he'€™ll be looking for a position with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) '€” if it still exists after a new president is elected in 2014.

The job he wants is in public education, not bugging hotel rooms and retrieving fat envelopes from startled crooks in sting ops.

'€œThe KPK does a good job, but prosecution and prevention should be separate,'€ he said. '€œWe need to explain that corruption is stealing from our country, denying the government money necessary for public works.

'€œYou cannot be a corruptor and morally pure. That may not be the situation legally but it is so ethically.'€