When Corruption Eradication Was Considered Unnoticed By Jokowi And Considered Just Lip Service

President Joko Widodo (Photo: Twitter @jokowi)

JAKARTA - Criticism of the performance of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) in an effort to eradicate corruption in the country has emerged. During his seven years in office, he was considered not to be serious and merely providing lip service in an effort to fight massive riots that occurred and harmed the community.

October this year will be the second year for the Jokowi-Ma'ruf Amin administration. However, the current government is considered not to pay attention to efforts to eradicate corruption and is more focused on infrastructure development efforts by researcher Zainur Rahman of the Center for Anti-Corruption Studies (PUKAT) of the Faculty of Law, Gadjah Mada University (UGM).

"I see that there is no attention from the President in eradicating corruption," Zainur told reporters quoted on Thursday, October 21.

This assessment is even stronger if you look at the Corruption Perception Index (GPA) of Indonesia, which has fallen from 40 in 2019 to 37 in 2020. According to Zainur, the drastic decline shows that Indonesia is still attached to corruption and has not become a country that is free from corruption.

In addition, he believes that the decline in Indonesia's GPA is due to the revision of the Corruption Eradication Commission Law (UU KPK) in 2019. This condition, he continued, was also further exacerbated by the poor selection of KPK leaders through the committee formed by President Jokowi.

Thus, these two factors have now succeeded in decompressing the eradication of corruption and worsening the performance of the KPK. Moreover, under the leadership of KPK Chairman Firli Bahuri, the number of prosecutions, especially hand arrest operations (OTT), has decreased drastically so that the anti-corruption commission is no longer respected by corrupt officials.

Furthermore, he considers the decline in the performance of the KPK is also a factor. Zainur said that the anti-corruption commission was now plagued with more internal problems, one of which was related to the National Insight Test Assessment (TWK) which eventually led to the dismissal of Novel Baswedan and 57 KPK employees.

"KPK is also plagued by many internal problems, one of which is the result of the revision of the KPK Law which changed the employment status to ASN, there was a National Insight Test which resulted in the dismissal of 57 employees," he said.

He said this dismissal was a big loss in efforts to eradicate corruption in the country, especially since dozens of these employees were qualified in carrying out their duties. However, unfortunately, Jokowi seems to have turned a blind eye because the recommendations regarding the findings of violations in the TWK process produced by the National Human Rights Commission and the Indonesian Ombudsman were not implemented.

Apart from this, Jokowi is also considered not to take the initiative to make laws that can support efforts to eradicate corruption optimally. "Why, because so far efforts to eradicate corruption have been hit by many things, such as efforts to recover assets because of the obstacles regulated in the Anti-Corruption Act," he explained.

"Until now, the Draft Law on Asset Confiscation has not been discussed between the government and the DPR and has not even been included in the National Legislation Program. Even though this bill can be a game changer," added Zainur.

Then, Jokowi is also considered not to try to reform institutions in other law enforcement officers such as the Attorney General's Office and the Police. In fact, these two institutions are often entangled in deviant behavior such as the most horrendous is working with fugitive Joko Tjandra.

"Well, the reform of law enforcement officers has not been carried out by the government in the last two or even seven years. The same goes for reforming the bureaucracy," said Zainur.

Meanwhile, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Kurnia Ramadhana said the eradication of corruption (KPK) is currently a serious problem. In fact, he saw no serious implementation in these efforts.

"The eradication of corruption in recent times has only been limited to lip service. It is limited to writing on paper without any concrete implementation," said Kurnia.

The weakening of the corruption eradication effort occurred because the process was carried out and supported by the political elite who sat in the government as well as the DPR. "The government and the DPR are the masterminds behind the collapse of the eradication of corruption in Indonesia," said the anti-corruption activist.

Reflecting on the existing conditions, Kurnia then asked the government to immediately take concrete policies related to eradicating corruption, especially against the KPK. This needs to be done in order to prevent a decline in the GPA which is believed to occur.

"Some time in the future we will see again how Indonesia's GPA has decreased in 2020 and now there is no concrete policy from the government regarding the strengthening of the KPK, so we believe that our GPA will fall, followed by the democracy index and others," said Kurnia. .

Strengthening the Corruption Eradication Commission, he continued, is something that should be a concern because so far there has been a crackdown on the institution, including regarding independence. This practice was increasingly seen in the midst of the polemic of the National Insight Test Assessment (TWK) where 58 KPK employees were finally expelled from their jobs because they did not pass.

"That there is a movement from political parties that agree with policies that weaken the anti-corruption agency. Of course this is not the job of the KPK leadership alone but there are contributions from the government and the DPR," he explained.

"This is not the job of the KPK leadership alone, but there are contributions from the government and the DPR, of course, if we directly link the government and the DPR, they are in the regulatory phase which culminates in Perkom 1 of 2021 which contains the issue of TWK, namely the KPK Law Number 19 of 2019 or the revision of Law Number 30 2002," concluded Kurnia.