JAKARTA - The COVID-19 pandemic season does not only result in a health crisis. The risk of mismanagement, waste, corruption to fraud is even easier in the midst of a pandemic.
Chairman of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) Agung Firman Sampurna said that this potential could occur because governments around the world set policies to suppress the spread of COVID-19 and provide various incentives with a very large budget.
"When there is sudden confusion, it increases the risk of not achieving the intended goal," he said in the International webinar Ensuring Transparency and Accountability in Covid-19 Pandemic: a Multi-Stakeholder Approach / Perspective in Jakarta, Monday, January 10, reported by Antara.
Agung said, the fact that this risk has occurred in Indonesia is that there are state officials misusing the budget that should be used to improve the welfare of the community in the midst of a health crisis.
"The fact is that there is currently an ongoing investigation in Indonesia regarding the possibility of a large misallocation of COVID-19 aid funds," he said.
According to Agung, this incident shows that the supervisory system in Indonesia is functioning properly so that the corruption can be exposed immediately.
"And it clearly shows that an effective BPK audit will support this national goal, namely for good governance," he stressed.
Therefore, Agung said the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) to enhance and affirm its role as the main governance institution.
"Transparency and accountability are two main components of good governance that must not be compromised even during a crisis," he stressed.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
