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Indonesia among biggest sources of illicit money
Jakarta Post - October 19, 2015
Citing a survey conducted by the Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a forum jointly held by TII, the Financial Transparency Coalition and the Jakarta-based think tank Perkumpulan Prakarsa revealed that Indonesia ranked seventh among the largest contributors of illicit money to wealthy nations such as Singapore.
The GFI survey, which also found that at least $6 trillion of the same type of money was taken out of developing countries between 2003 and 2012, claimed that Indonesia had seen an average loss of $18.7 billion every year since 2003.
"Financial violators made use of the country's bad governance system to hide their illicit money outside the country. Financial crimes have become sophisticated, so in many cases they could not be detected," TII secretary-general Dadang Trisasongko told the forum on Sunday.
Dadang further said that a study conducted by TII had found that many financial violators had used the identities of others to set up legitimate companies in Indonesia to make it difficult for the financial authority to identify the sources of the respective companies' capital funding.
"As the registered status of companies funded by the dirty money is 'legitimate', they can freely move their money out of the country without disruption. That's one of the ways money from criminal activities is channeled abroad," Dadang said.
Indonesia is in a better position compared to China, which ranked first on the list with accumulative transfers of $1.25 trillion between 2003 and 2012, followed respectively by the Russian Federation with $973 billion; Mexico with $514 billion and India $439 billion; Malaysia $394 billion; and Brazil $217 billion.
Meanwhile, war-torn Nigeria is two rung below Indonesia in ninth position on the list with total losses of $157 billion during the surveyed period. Thailand and South Africa come respectively in eighth and 10th position with $171 billion and $122 billion.
"Although we effectively implemented Law No. 14/2008 on public information in 2010, it is still difficult to find information on ownership of a company. This is because there is no political push from the government and the House of Representatives with regard to transparency," Dadang said.
Setyo Budiantoro, executive director of Perkumpulan Prakarsa, said that the amount of dirty money taken out of Indonesia every year was greater than the amount of money the government received from foreign aid and foreign investment.
"If we could stop illicit transfers then there would no longer be a need for foreign aid to support the economy," Setyo said on Sunday.
Perkumpulan Prakarsa, an NGO that focuses on welfare, found that the illicit transfer of dirty money abroad had direct impact on poverty and economic inequality in the country, said Setyo.
He said each time the country saw a spike in the amount of dirty money sent abroad, poverty and economic inequality rates also increased.
Meanwhile, Porter McConnell, director of the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), described the rising phenomenon of dirty money transfers to safe haven countries as a "betrayal of public trust".
"So, that all paints a very desperate picture, but the good news is that there are some solutions that policymakers are debating right now, especially in the area of transparency [...], including knowing who is behind a company and who the people benefiting from a corporation are. Some countries, especially in Europe, have public registries where you can look up information as a journalist or citizen," McConell said.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/10/19/ri-among-biggest-sources-illicit-money.html.
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