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Critics say KPK tried to discredit Ombudsman
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Members of the Anticorruption Civil Society Coalition stage a rally in front of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) headquarters in Jakarta on Friday. They protested against the KPK's recent move to hold a civic knowledge test for its employees as part of the employment status transition as mandated by the revision of the KPK Law. (Antara/Aprillio Akbar)
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span id="docs-internal-guid-b801536b-7fff-461d-eee0-d1693d23cada">Critics have lambasted the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for disputing the Indonesian Ombudsman's finding of mismanagement in the KPK's controversial employment test by making a counter accusation against the former.
The Ombudsman announced in late July that the organizing of a civic knowledge test, required for KPK employees to become civil servants, was marred by maladministration from the get-go. This includes mismanagement of the deliberation of an internal KPK regulation, which later became the only document giving a legal basis for the organizing of the test between March and April. The Ombudsman, in an interim recommendation, asked the KPK to revoke the dismissal of 75 workers and top investigators who did not pass the test and to change their status to civil servants.
KPK deputy chairman Nurul Ghufron told a press conference on Thursday that the Ombudsman had meddled in the KPK's internal employment affairs. He said the Ombudsman had no power to probe the KPK policymaking process because the authority to conduct judicial reviews of internal regulations lay with the Supreme Court, and therefore the Ombudsman should have declined the request for investigation filed by former KPK employees.
Nurul later made a counter accusation against the Ombudsman of maladministration in the handling of the case, particularly when it questioned him in the investigation. He said it should have been one of the Ombudsman commissioners who questioned him, not a deputy assistant.
Read also: Controversial test puts KPK management in spotlight
Critics saw this as an attempt to discredit the Ombudsman and divert public attention away from the alleged maladministration surrounding the civics test. They said the Ombudsman had the power to investigate whether the organizing of the civics test was in line with procedures and therefore could look into the KPK's policymaking process.
“This kind of reaction [from the KPK] is nonsense. Anyone, regardless of their position, can file a report with the Ombudsman,” Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) activist Kurnia Ramadhana said on Saturday.
