Alexander Marwata Asked ICW To Read The Anti-Corruption Law After Calling The Village Head Small Corruption No Need To Go To Prison

Vice Chairman of KPK Alexander Marwata (Wardhany Tsa Tsia/VOI)

JAKARTA - Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Kurnia Ramadhana asked Deputy Chair of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Alexander Marwata to read the Corruption Law in its entirety.

This request comes after Alexander said village heads who were corrupt in a small amount should not be jailed. This was conveyed by him while attending the Anti-Corruption Village Launching in Matraman Panggungharjo Village, Bantul, Yogyakarta on Wednesday, November 1.

"The KPK commissioner must be really serious when he reads the Anti-Corruption Law," Kurnia told reporters, Friday, December 3.

This anti-corruption activist said Alexander's statement suggested that he did not understand the applicable laws and regulations. The reason is that Article 4 of the Anti-Corruption Law states that returning state losses cannot erase a person's crime.

In addition, Kurnia said, corrupt practices cannot be judged large or small by looking at the amount of money taken. According to him, even a small amount of rioting can have an impact on the lives of many people.

"So Marwata's opinion seems to simplify the problem of corruption," he said.

Furthermore, Kurnia assessed that Alexander might want to implement restorative justice. However, he considers this step inappropriate for complex crimes such as corruption.

"Moreover, corruption has been categorized as an extraordinary crime," said Kurnia.

He asked Alexander to be careful in making public statements because this kind of thing could have serious implications. One of them, it is not impossible that in the future corrupt village heads will be more enthusiastic about carrying out presumptuous practices because they can be freed from the snares of the law as he said.

In addition, Kurnia said, Alexander should have realized that the village fund budget is one of the sectors with the most indications of corruption [in the first semester of 2021. Based on ICW's records, there were at least 55 cases with a total state loss of IDR 35.7 billion.

"Not only that, the Village Head is also ranked third in terms of the background of the perpetrators with a total of 61 people. Therefore, corruption committed by the village head cannot be underestimated as stated by the KPK Commissioner." he said.

As previously reported, Alexander Marwata said that the village head does not need to be imprisoned if he is caught in a small amount of corruption. He said they simply returned the money he took and was fired.

"I think what needs to be considered in the future, including taking action against village heads, is that if a village head is proven to have taken money, but the value is not much, if it is processed in court, the costs are higher, in the end it will be ineffective and inefficient," said Alexander at the time.

According to him, convicting or imprisoning village heads who are involved in corruption through a lengthy court process will require large amounts of state money, even more than what the state gets from disclosing cases of financial irregularities.

"Yes, just tell the village head to return it, if there is a stipulation to fire the village head, the problem is solved. If there are no provisions, how will the rules be made, maybe through village consultations (musdes) with the community, they are the ones who choose," he said.