Regional Heads In Papua Asked To Empower APIP, KPK: They Are Guards Running The Government

KPK Building (VOI)

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Alexander Marwata asked officials in the executive and legislative branches to continue to maintain integrity and strengthen integrated governance. In addition, regional heads are asked to empower the government internal control apparatus (APIP).

He conveyed this when giving a speech at the Coordination Meeting for the Supervision of the Integrated Prevention of Corruption in the Papua Region, at the Governor's Office, Tuesday, November 23.

"They (APIP, ed) have served as your bodyguards in running the government for five years. Therefore, their capacity must be strengthened by providing training, the number of auditors, and the adequacy of the budget," Alexander said in a written statement quoted on Wednesday, November 24.

He said efforts to strengthen good governance in the regions were needed to anticipate eight areas prone to corruption. The vulnerable areas include APBD Planning and Budgeting, Procurement of Goods and Services, Licensing, APIP Supervision, ASN Management, Optimization of Regional Taxes, Regional Asset Management, and Village Financial Governance.

In addition, Alexander said that there was a lot of homework that the Papuan government had to do. Moreover, the achievements of the Monitoring Center for Prevention (MCP) are still low.

With a score scale of 0 to 100 percent, in 2018 to 2020, continued Alexander, the average score for the Papua region was 25 percent, 34 percent, and 25 percent. Meanwhile, in 2021, he continued, it is still at 9 percent compared to the national average score of 46 percent.

"From MCP's achievements, there is still a lot of homework that the local government in Papua has to do," said Alexander.

"KPK encourages the implementation of the eight focus areas that we mapped based on the risk of corruption from the experience of handling corruption cases by the KPK and other law enforcement officials," he concluded.