Sri Mulyani: Corruption Has A Tremendous Destructive Impact, Lowers Economic And Democratic Performance

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said that corruption is a disgraceful act that has a devastating impact. This assumption was expressed by the Minister of Finance considering that corruption has a fairly wide excess in various fields.

“Corruption has an incredibly damaging impact. If we look at it from the government's perspective, corruption can erode the so-called level of trust," he said when speaking at the commemoration of World Anti-Corruption Day (Hakordia) at the Ministry of Finance, Wednesday, December 8.

According to the Minister of Finance, the acute level of corruption is very likely to cause public distrust in a government. He later considered this to be a setback for democracy because corruption was against the principles of honesty and openness.

"People can no longer trust a government that is considered very corrupt, so there will be political and social upheavals, creating inequality in quality or extraordinary inequality, creating damage in life," he said.

From an economic point of view, it is certain that a corrupt government does not care about equitable economic development. This is then considered by the Minister of Finance as the reason why corruption is quite vulnerable to disrupting the economic sector.

"Corruption will also cause the absence of productive activities in the form of investment, because anyone who has capital will think a thousand times whether he can run his business without later becoming a victim of rampant corruption," he explained.

The state treasurer stated that the Ministry of Finance was one of the few institutions that was entrusted with conducting an independent internal survey related to the corruption perception index in the institution. The Minister of Finance said this was an achievement for the credibility and transparency of the Ministry of Finance and was recognized by several state institutions, such as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

It was reported that there are five echelon 1 units at the Ministry of Finance with the highest integrity assessments, namely the Directorate General of Treasury, Directorate General of State Assets, Directorate General of Fiscal Balance, Secretariat General, and Inspectorate General.

For information, the five units have an integrity score above the general assessment of the Ministry of Finance, which is 88.96. Meanwhile, the lowest score was in the Directorate General of Taxes unit with 81.18.

"Thus, corruption will reduce economic performance and of course will reduce the performance of the democratic system or representation. This (corruption) is a disease that can overtake and erode the foundations of a society and a state," closed the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.