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Fighting our own war! (1)

The need for a coalition of the willing

03/23/03

Facts

While we should concern on the war in Iraq, let’s not forget to fight our own war: The war against corruption and poverty. According to the recent report by Transparency International, Indonesia remains the most corrupt country in the East Asian Pacific region and is rank number 7 as the most corrupt country in the world after Bangladesh, Nigeria, Paraguay, Madagascar, Angola and Kenya. The ranking is based on Corruption Perception Index (CPI) designed by TI which relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people, academics and risk analysts, and ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt). CPI score for Indonesia is 1.9, only 0.7 point higher than the lowest score (See table 3).

The ranking tells us little about the size of corruption. If we compare to the Gross Domestic Product, the CPI ranking gives us a better picture that Indonesia is the most corrupt country on earth (table 1). It is widely believed, according to the statement by the Chairman of National Development Planning Agency, Kwik Kian Gie and the late Professor Sumitro, that about 30% of the government budget is corrupted. Suppose we use this number to approximate the total amount of funds that has been corrupted in Indonesia during the last 25 years prior to 1999. The results are listed in table 2 and it shows a staggering amount of $150 billions! This is very close to the current total of our national debts (public plus private debts).

Suppose we assume that the percentage of the government budget corrupted is between 20% to 40% then the total amount of funds that has been corrupted during the period of 1975 to 1999 is between $100 to $200 billions. So far, there has been a limited studies conducted to estimate the total amount of funds corrupted in the country. But, whatever it might be, it is likely to be in that range.

Corruption, unfortunately, is everywhere, but as the number suggests, corruption in Indonesia is too much to comprehend. It is safe to say that it is the major culprit that has brought the nation down.

The manifestations of corruption creep up in all aspects of government and society. There is big corruption in a big arena, like Bank scandals, Pertamina scandal and multimillion-dollar-government projects.  There is small corruption in a small arena, like a police officer that accepts a bribe to forget about a traffic violation. Any type of corruption, no matter how big or small, is a blow to national economy and development.

Next: What should we do?

Related articles:

Did corruption contribute to the economic crisis?

Corruption: common places and its implications

Table 1. The most corrupted countries in the world.

Table 2. The Indonesian government expenditures, 1975-1999

Table 3. Corruption Perception Index 2002 Scores

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