Regional Head Candidates Receive Donations, KPK: Must Be Reported

Deputy Chairperson of the KPK Alexander Marwata (Photo; KPK Doc)

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Alexander Marwata appealed to regional head candidates (cakada) to openly and validly report the campaign contributions they received.

Alex said that honesty in reporting every campaign contribution is a measure of the integrity of the regional head office.

"One of the indicators for the integrity of the regional heads is the honesty in reporting each campaign contribution. The results of the 2018 KPK survey found that 82.3 percent of the regional head candidates stated that there were donors or contributors to the funding of the elections," said Alex in his statement received in Jakarta, reported by Antara, Tuesday, November 24. .

The appeal was conveyed by Alex at the "Cakada Preparation and Simultaneous Regional Election Organizers 2020" in Jambi, Central Java (Central Java), Southeast Sulawesi (Sultra), and Maluku Provinces which took place at the Auditorium of the Jambi Governor's Office Home, Jambi City, Tuesday.

Meanwhile, participants from Central Java, Southeast Sulawesi and Maluku took part in online debriefing.

Regional head corruption, continued Alex, is closely related to the tendency of elected regional heads to repay services for financial support from donors from the nomination process, campaigning to voting.

The hope of donors to the regional head according to the KPK survey in 2018 is ease of licensing, ease of participating in government project tenders, security of running a business, easy access to donors or colleagues to hold local government or BUMD, easy access to determine local regulations, priority of direct assistance and priority of social assistance funds or APBD grants.

Alexander Marwata said that based on the KPK evaluation, there were five modes of corruption for regional heads. First, intervention in regional expenditure activities ranging from procurement of goods and services (PBJ), regional cash management, implementation of grants, social assistance and programs, asset management to the placement of local government budgets in BUMD.

Second, intervening in regional revenues from local taxes or levies, local revenues from the center to cooperation with other parties. Third, licensing starts from providing recommendations, issuing permits to extortion.

"Fourth, conflicts of interest in the PBJ process, mutation of the State Civil Service (ASN), and concurrent positions. Fifth, abuse of authority from the appointment and placement of close people to extortion during ASN rotation, transfer or promotion," said Alex.

Meanwhile, Head of the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) Abhan believes the quality and integrity of elections at the regional level is one of the indicators of the success of democracy.

He said that organizing elections with integrity is an absolute prerequisite for the realization of quality pilkada.

Money politics, he said, is an abuse of the intelligence of voters which destroys the democratic order and undermines the dignity of humanity.

"The impact of money politics is to kill political regeneration, unqualified leadership, destroying the democratic process, fooling the people, expensive political costs that lead to transactional politics, and corruption in which development budgets are robbed to return debts to cukong," said Abhan.