SMRC Survey: The Majority Of Society Value Corruption Increasingly This Year

JAKARTA - The Saiful Mujani Research Center (SMRC) survey institute released the results of a survey regarding public opinion regarding corruption in Indonesia over the past year.

The Executive Director of SMRC, Sirojudin Abbas, said that the majority of citizens considered that corruption was now increasingly being carried out in Indonesia.

"About 55 percent think that there is more corruption now than last year, while those who assess corruption are 13 percent less, and those who value it the same as 26 percent," Abbas said in a virtual survey presentation, Tuesday, December 29.

Abbas said this figure also increased compared to last year's survey results. In the survey in April 2019, residents considered that corruption was increasing by 48 percent. This means that there is an increase of 7 percent of respondents who think that corruption is increasing in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, there has been a decline in the public opinion that corruption is decreasing. In the survey in April 2019, residents who rated corruption were less than 24 percent. This means that there is an 11 percent decrease in respondents who think that there is less corruption in Indonesia.

Seeing this condition, Abbas revealed that many people think that corruption will increase at the end of 2020 due to the corruption case that ensnared two ministers of the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet.

First, Edhy Prabowo who was arrested by the KPK for corruption in the export of lobster seeds when he was Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Second, Juliar Batubara committed social assistance corruption while serving as Minister of Social Affairs.

"The alleged corruption case at the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Fisheries appears to have contributed to the negative assessment of citizens about corruption in Indonesia," said Abbas.

This survey was conducted in the period 16 to 19 December 2020. The survey was conducted via telephone interviews with 1,202 randomly selected respondents.

There is also an estimated margin of error of this survey at around 2.9 percent and a survey confidence level of 95 percent.