Jokowi: Corruption Enforcement Is Not Measured By The Cases Found

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) attended the commemoration of World Anti-Corruption Day (Hakordia) 2020 after being absent last year. He was present virtually from the State Palace, Jakarta accompanied by the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD and State Secretary Minister (Mensetneg) Pratikno.

In his remarks, President Jokowi touched on the professionalism of law enforcement officers who have a central role in the prosecution and prevention of corruption. He wanted law enforcement officials to have more thoughts on improving governance and preventing corruption because the success of eradicating corruption was not only measured by the number of cases handled.

"The performance of enforcement is not measured by how many cases are found but how to prevent them on an ongoing basis so that corruption does not happen again," said Jokowi, broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube account, Wednesday, December 16.

Jokowi said that eradicating corruption cannot be done in an ordinary way but it needs extraordinary, innovative and systematic ways. This needs to be done to close the opportunity for criminal acts of corruption to occur.

"Efforts to eradicate corruption require extraordinary persistence and consistency. It takes extraordinary togetherness orchestration to prevent it, requires innovation, and systematic work to close opportunities for corruption and requires fair and consistent action to prosecute perpetrators of corruption," he said.

This systemic work, he continued, must be carried out from upstream to downstream. So that in the future the eradication of corruption can be more effective so that it will lead to the welfare of the community.

In addition, before closing his remarks, the former governor of DKI Jakarta asked that the spirit of eradicating corruption should not be cut off even though the electricity in their building was down. This also alludes to the electricity which had been cut off during the event.

"Even though the electricity at the KPK goes out, corruption eradication must not be turned off," he said.

It is known, in the 2019 Hakordia commemoration, President Jokowi was not present and was represented by Vice President Ma'ruf Amin. At that time, Jokowi preferred to attend a drama performance played by a number of his ministers including BUMN Minister Erick Thohir at SMKN 57, South Jakarta.

The reason for Jokowi's absence at that time was to share duties with his deputy.

"Every year I attend. Only this Mr. Ma'ruf has never been there, huh. I continue to share the time every year," he said at the time.