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Jokowi responds to Megawati's graft concerns
Jakarta Post - July 23, 2015
Speaking at an event marking the Attorney General's Office (AGO) anniversary, the President said Indonesian people were eager to see success in the development of existing programs.
"My message is to not let efforts to eradicate corruption and enforce the law make government officials and businesspeople afraid to make innovations for development," Jokowi said.
The President called on the AGO to do its best in reforming its internal structure and performance. He warned law enforcers against naming suspects only to extort them.
"Therefore, leaders and all members of the AGO should accompany government officials in improving the bureaucracy to accelerate national development programs," he added.
According to data collected by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) from 2004 to May 2015, of 459 people named as graft suspects in the past decade, 116 were from echelon I, II and III positions. This was closely followed by those who worked in the private sector, with 114 suspects.
Speaking at a gathering of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) on Tuesday, party chairperson Megawati blamed the KPK for being one of the main causes of the country's sluggish economic development.
The former president said government officials were often so afraid of the antigraft body that they refrained from performing their best as state officials. Megawati also criticized the corrupt mentality of the bureaucracy.
"They are scared to make a mistake, so they don't want to work. They are afraid that if they act, they will be targeted by the KPK, so they keep quiet, because they don't know what is right and what is wrong," said the daughter of country's first president Sukarno.
Meanwhile, Attorney General M. Prasetyo assured the President that the prosecutors under the AGO were all closely supervised to prevent such occurrences.
"We will work with maximum [effort]. We already have a junior attorney general for supervision at the AGO who always monitors, follows and supervises the performance of our prosecutors in each of their assigned regions," he said.
Separately, Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Yuddy Chrisnandi said his office had already finalized the drafts of two government regulations on the acceleration of budget disbursement.
According to Yuddy, the two government regulations would stipulate administrative penalties that public officials would face should they cause state losses in issuing policies. Under the regulations, they would also only be required to repay the losses without having to face prosecution.
"Because, the 2014 law ensures that [a public official exercising] discretion cannot be prosecuted if the policy causes state losses, as long as there is no intention to enrich himself or other persons, no abuse of authority, no personal reasons [behind the policy], and as long as it is for the public interest.
"Instead, [he or she] will only get administrative sanctions and be required to repay the state losses," Yuddy said on Wednesday at the State Palace.
"So, local officials should not be worried about issuing policies to speed up budget spending to boost development," the minister said, adding that the President had discussed the matter with the AGO and the police.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/07/23/jokowi-responds-megawati-s-graft-concerns.html.
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