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akarta Deputy Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama is in the process of establishing a bureaucratic system to prevent fraudulent practices and abuses of power by officials and employees in the city administration.

Ahok, who received the prestigious 2013 Bung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award (BHACA) for his efforts in combating graft when he was regent of East Belitung, Bangka-Belitung, said on Friday that corruption could be reduced by creating a good system that would make it difficult for officials to abuse their power and enrich themselves.

'€œIf we can successfully initiate the system, it will outlast my five-year tenure as a deputy governor,'€ he said after receiving the prestigious award here on Thursday.

Ahok said he and Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo were now trying to establish the anti corruption system in all agencies and sectors in the city administration.

The two started by publishing a detailed allocation list of the city'€™s 2013 budget and shared the information with all subdistrict offices.

They also held an open-call recruitment for subdistrict and district leaders, which was different with the previous system in which all district heads were directly selected by the then governor.

In the open-call recruitment, all qualified civil servants were invited to participate by registering online. The candidates underwent certain examinations, such as psychological tests, interviews and pitching ideas for programs, which was conducted by an independent institution.

The same mechanism will be used to select community health center (puskesmas) heads and school principals.

The city administration is now upgrading the electronic systems for public services, especially the ones related to business permit issuance to reduce red tape.

Ahok said he also planned to create an electronic budgeting (e-budgeting) and e-catalog system to improve the selection, implementation and management of the city'€™s programs.

The plan was triggered by his findings when he examined the use of the city budget. Ahok found a number of programs that were deleted had reappeared in the final draft, which was finally approved by the City Council. He also found unnecessary programs and mark-ups in many budgets.

'€œFrankly, I realized I missed a lot in the 2013 budget. I found many unnecessary expenses, particularly in the Public Works Agency, such as money assigned to consultants or pump revitalization programs. Some of you have been playing around,'€ he said.

He said he did not want to see agency and unit heads collaborating with councilors to resubmit deleted programs into the final draft.

The practice seems to commonly occur in the administration. Recently, the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) found irregularities in the Jakarta administration'€™s 2012 financial report totaling Rp 1.476 trillion (US$131.36 million).

Meanwhile, for law enforcement, Ahok said he handed it over to the authorities.

'€œWe are collaborating with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK), the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) and the BPKP to fight corruption within the administration,'€ he said.

Ahok said he and Jokowi once said that they would not dig up past '€œsins'€ committed by officials when they were elected as Governor and Deputy Governor.

'€œBut, we warned them that if they carry out the same offenses again, there will be no mercy,'€ he said.