The West Sumatra Ombudsman Still Finds Extortion In The Village

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PADANG - The Ombudsman Representative for West Sumatra is still finding illegal levies in the kelurahan when residents are processing letters made by unscrupulous kelurahan employees.

"The nominal also varies from Rp. 15,000 to Rp. 1.5 million," said Assistant Ombudsman for West Sumatra Representative Adel Wahidi in Padang, quoted by Antara, Friday, December 10.

He conveyed this at the "Evaluation of Compliance Assessment Against Public Service Standards 2021" which was held by the Indonesian Ombudsman Representative for West Sumatra.

According to him, his party still found that there were unscrupulous village officials who collected Rp. 15,000 to take care of the poverty certificate.

There was even a levy of up to Rp. 1.5 million by sub-district officials related to the issuance of letters regarding land, he said.

Although complaints about extortion have decreased, he still finds reports of illegal extortion coming in.

"For cases like this, when there is a report and it is followed up by the Ombudsman, usually the money has been returned to the community and the person receiving it has been given a sanction by the superior," he said.

On the other hand, he considered the need for a continuous commitment from public service providers to prevent extortion.

"Don't let the inspection or supervision be free of extortion, after that there will be extortion," he said.

Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Indonesian Ombudsman, Mokhammad Najih, assessed that the use of clear applications and information would prevent illegal levies on public service processes carried out by government agencies and institutions.

In this service, he said, if there is clear information about the time limit, including whether there is a fee or not, it will prevent illegal levies from happening.

According to him, the public must be educated so that when taking care of their needs with government agencies they do not delegate them to other people.

"It's enough to trust the service providers, don't be tempted by various offers to ask people for help," he said.

He assessed that if the implementation was carried out online and using adequate applications and information, illegal levies would be eliminated.