KPK Asks North Sulawesi DPRD To Create Anti-Corruption Policy

JAKARTA - The Director of Coordination and Supervision of Region IV of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Ely Kusumastuti asked the North Sulawesi Provincial DPRD to make policies that favor the people and are anti-corruption.

"Policies from upstream to downstream must be made transparently, accountable, and do not have a conflict of interest with any party, in order to create clean and corruption-free governance practices and governance," said Ely in a Hearing Meeting (RDP) for the Eradication Program. Integrated Corruption in the North Sulawesi DPRD Plenary Meeting Room, reported by Antara, Saturday, July 16.

Ely explained that efforts to eradicate corruption could not be carried out sporadically. On that basis, the Corruption Eradication Commission sees the role of council members as very large and needs to be utilized for the good of the wider community.

"The current period, council members will be busy with preparing the budget for the 2023 APBD, starting from the preparation, approval, to ratification, which is a key point for community welfare and must be done properly," he said.

Furthermore, in this process, Ely reminded that the budget draft must pay attention to caution, because if this process is wrong, it will create loopholes for criminal acts of corruption that can be exploited by unscrupulous persons.

Not only that, in order to create clean governance, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) opens itself up if the North Sulawesi DPRD wants to ask for help or assistance.

Moreover, the KPK supervision coordination program focuses on preventing corruption loopholes in budgeting, procurement of goods and services, licensing, ASN management, regional asset management, Regional Tax Optimization (OPD), APIP, and village fund management.

"KPK has no intention of finding fault. When we coordinated for prevention, we had no intention of arresting. Instead, we wanted to jointly carry out the mandate to build North Sulawesi free from corruption," said Ely.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Task Force for the Coordination and Supervision of the Regional IV Directorate of the KPK Wahyudi asked the council members to carry out a more stringent supervisory function in the North Sulawesi region, because there were many problems regarding government assets whose use was not beneficial to the community.

For example, in North Minahasa Regency and Bolaang Mongondow Regency, there are official residences for the regent and deputy regent which have never been used since they were built.

This must be a concern because the building was built using large amounts of public money.

The DPRD, according to Wahyudi, must conduct a study and ask for information from various parties to account for this government asset. Do not let the arrangement of government assets be hampered because there is a lawsuit from the party who claims the existence of the land and buildings.

"There is also a training center that has not been used to this day. This has no benefit for the people and is detrimental because the construction cost is billions of rupiah," said Wahyudi.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) also highlighted North Sulawesi's sub-optimal Regional Original Income (PAD). He asked the legislators to push the PAD target based on the potential, not the realization from the previous year.

"There are nine direct flights but apparently there is no significant increase in foreign tourists. We hope the Council can confirm the PAD target. What should the PAD be dissected from? Taxes, how many hotels, how many restaurants, how many entertainment venues, and how much potential," he said.

The chairman of the DPRD of North Sulawesi Province, Fransiscus A. Silangen, expressed his gratitude to the KPK for providing direction to the members of the council.

This needs to be a shared reflection for all parties so that in the future they can make efforts to prevent and eradicate corruption better.

"This moral message must be lived. This is for the sake of creating the ideals of North Sulawesi free from corruption," he said.

Also attending the event were Deputy Speakers of the DPRD Victor Mailangkay, James Arthur Kojongian, and Billy Lombok, as well as a number of officials.