Today, ministers are meeting under the Saudi Group of 20 presidency to discuss international cooperation to fight corruption. On the agenda will be how harness the new information and communications technologies (ICT) to reduce and eliminate corruption in the era of COVID-19.

Even before the pandemic, it was estimated that the world spends over US$7 trillion on health services a year, of which 10–25 percent is lost directly through corruption (see “Corruption in global health: The open secret”, The Lancet, Nov. 27, 2019)

In middle income countries such as Indonesia, the World Bank estimates that on average 13 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) is spent on government purchases, and in some countries, like Vietnam, up to 20 percent. With corruption rife in public services, it is not surprising that most ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, continue to hover around the middle of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.

Since the pandemic started, not a day goes by without reports of corruption around public spending for healthcare – ventilators, personal protective equipment, face masks are just some of the emergency supplies that have been exposed to scams, fraud and theft.

In Indonesia, when the pandemic was declared, the government introduced legislation which allowed public procurement to be fast-streamed for emergence relief. While the speedy delivery of medical equipment is an essential response to the pandemic, it can also lead to cutting corners and “special deals”. Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) recently highlighted its concerns about potential irregularities and a lack of transparency around government purchases.

These issues were brought out in a recent joint statement of the B20, the business advocacy group of the G20 and United Nations Development Program, which called for the “future adoption of new technologies…in preventing and detecting fraud and corruption in public procurement”.

And earlier this year, the G20 countries, of which Indonesia is a member, signed up to “High Level Principles for Promoting Public Sector Integrity Through the Use of Information and Communications Technologies” which focuses on “effective and transparent public administration and digital public services, ICT in public engagement on anti-corruption and ICT in the detection, reporting and investigation of corruption”.

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