The Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission

Mochammad Jasin, Commissioner, Corruption Eradication Commission, Indonesia

The Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission, better known as the KPK (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi), is an extraordinary government law-enforcement body set up at the end of 2003 to fight extraordinary corruption that had become systemic and well entrenched in Indonesian life, affecting the lives and decision-making processes of practically everyone in the country, from the highest executive official to the lowest traffic police officer.

Before the KPK, six institutions dating back to the 1950s had been formed to combat corruption. The successes of these previous institutions were very short-lived, mainly because they only focused on law enforcement. In the era before 1966, there was the anti-corruption agency “Paran” (State Aparatur Reformation Committee), which obligated all state officers to submit wealth reports. This committee failed because of the resistance from state officers to submit the wealth reports. After Paran was dismissed, Presidential Decree No. 275/1963 established Operasi Budhi. This attempt was also a failure because bureaucrats and state officers close to the president opposed it. Those officers involved in corrupt acts succeeded in persuading the president to stop it, the reason used being that this operation could disturb the prestige of the president.

In the New Order of President Soeharto, efforts to eradicate corruption were reduced by bad government. On one hand, many slogans and anti-corruption agencies were developed, but on the other the government “legalised” corrupt acts in laws and public policy. In the beginning of this era, a new anti-corruption agency called the TPK (Tim Pemberantasan Korupsi) was established. This agency was barren. Next, as a response to students’ protests, in 1970 the Komite Empat (Committee Four) was formed. This agency was nothing more than the product of political rhetoric. The one and only success, if we may say so, in eradicating corruption under the New Order regime was Opstib (Clean Operation). However, this operation only dealt with petty corruption on the streets. Lastly, in the era of President Abdurrahman Wahid, the so-called Tim Gabungan Pemberantasan Tindak Pidana Korupsi-TGPTPK (Anti-Corruption Joint Team) was established. According to the Supreme Court (by means of judicial review), the existence and structure of the agency was irregular, and it was dismissed.

Compared to these earlier operations, the KPK’s much more solid track record owes much to its comprehensive contemplation of how systemic corruption had become at the time that it took office. Law enforcement alone would never have sufficed; it had to be accompanied by prevention efforts, supervision and coordination of all law-enforcement institutions involved in processing corruption cases, and the participation of the public. All these concerns were provided for in Law No. 30 of 2002 on the Corruption Eradication Commission, which sets out the KPK’s authority, powers and duties of law enforcement in aforementioned comprehensive manner, as well as the KPK’s main internal rules, including the duties and tasks of each deputy and directorate of the KPK, as well as the prerequisites for the appointment of its commissioners.

In conducting law-enforcement operations, the KPK follows the main Indonesian anti-corruption laws, namely Law No. 31 of 1999, juncto Law No. 20 of 2001 on the Eradication of Corruption, and Law No. 28 of 1999 on Corruption-Free State Governance; and even non-corruption specific acts such as Law No. 25 of 2003 on Money Laundering. In regulating the KPK’s day-to-day activities, Law No. 30 of 2002 was later accompanied by supporting internal KPK regulations, including Commissioners’ Ruling No. PER-08/01/XII/2008 on the Organization and Management of the KPK, which refines the duties and tasks of each deputy and directorate according to the KPK’s organizational needs of the time; and Commissioners’ Ruling No. KEP-06/P.KPK/02/2004 on the Code of Ethics of the Commissioners of the KPK, which sets out the behavioural standards that must be adhered to by the KPK commissioners in order both to ensure gold-standard conduct from the commissioners as well as to set an important example for KPK employees, as well as the employees of other government institutions in a country where such examples have been for the most part lacking over at least three decades.

The KPK has some unique features compared to other law-enforcement agencies. Five commissioners and two advisors (although it is supposed to be four) lead the commission’s 639 staff. The KPK is independent from the executive, legislature, and judiciary, and any other powers. Financially, the KPK is audited by the Indonesian Supreme Audit Board and should be responsible to the public. In doing its tasks, the KPK has the authority to supervise and coordinate the Attorney General’s Office as well as the National Police in handling corruption cases.

According to the article 6 of Law No. 30, 2002, the KPK has five categories of duties, authorities and obligations, as follows:
1. To coordinate with institutions authorized to combat acts of corruption;
2. To supervise institutions authorized to combat acts of corruption;
3. To conduct preliminary investigations, investigations and prosecutions of acts of corruption;
4. To conduct corruption-prevention activities; and,
5. To conduct monitoring of state governance.

The KPK is authorized to conduct pre-investigations, investigations, and prosecutions of corruption cases that:
1. Involve law enforcers, state officials, and other individuals connected to corrupt acts perpetrated by law enforcers or state officials;
2. Have generated significant public concern; and/or
3. Have lost the state at least a billion Indonesian rupiah (USD 100,000)

Challenges ahead

In recent years, the corrupt have fought back in different ways, through various methods and channels. For example, the ordinary courts have not been giving much support as many of the corrupt have been freed by their verdicts.

Some aspects of corruption have not yet been criminalized, for example, wholly private sector corruption. The amended draft Law of Criminal Procedure has also not yet been passed. This law is important for the reason that at the moment the KPK cannot have its own investigators and prosecutors. Its investigators must come from the police and prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office. Besides that, matters concerning witness protection, lawful interception of communications, and wealth reports have not been settled.

The newly-passed law of the Anti-Corruption Court also poses new challenges to the KPK. The law requires that in some regions Anti-Corruption Courts should be established. Presently there is only one Anti-Corruption Court, in Jakarta. Considering that the KPK does not have branch offices, having regional courts would pose some technical coordination problems during trial.

In 2009, the KPK had to face a very heavy test. The chairman was removed from his position because of allegations of involvement in a serious case. This was followed by dirty fabricated cases aimed at two commissioners. The removal of these commissioners would have crippled the KPK’s operational capabilities, as under the law on the KPK, once a commissioner is declared a suspect in a criminal investigation, he or she will be temporarily suspended. Once prosecuted, he or she will be terminated permanently from the position. Under the existing rules on decision-making of the KPK commissioners as mandated by law, one more suspended commissioner would mean that the KPK would lose its ability to take action. Fortunately, in the latter cases the truth was finally revealed.

Other than challenges from external factors as illustrated above, some challenges are internal. Firstly, the human resources of the KPK are small when compared to the 220 millions and vast geography of Indonesia. Secondly, the current KPK building is not really providing enough proper rooms for all personnel. The proposed budget for a new building has not been approved yet by the parliament. Thirdly, the KPK is not authorized to appoint investigators and prosecutors into office. Fourthly, the KPK currently still has to borrow detention facilities from the police.

Learning from the failure of previous anti-corruption agencies in Indonesia, the KPK has taken some measures to avoid the same mistakes. Firstly and very importantly, the main philosophy chosen by the commissioners at present is the integration of preventive and repressive priorities through enhanced communication between the KPK’s main activities. Proactive manifestations of this philosophy take form in repressive law-enforcement activities that are initiated when institutions are deemed to delay a proper response in addressing preventive recommendations. Institutions which have received anti-corruption recommendations and which have failed to implement change and initiate bureaucratic reforms are now at risk of being targeted for repressive law-enforcement action. Synergistically, institutions that are being processed according to law following repressive law enforcement by the KPK are also given support from the KPK in the area of corruption prevention. In certain circumstances, the KPK will conduct analysis of an institution’s internal rules and regulations and discuss the results with the institution, to ascertain whether such internal rules create potential for abuse of authority, conflicts of interest, or are prone to corruption. Discussions are geared to the improvement of those internal rules.

This current philosophy of consolidating repressive law-enforcement measures with preventive measures is being adopted through the KPK’s significant involvement in a national effort to clean up two priority institutions in Indonesia in respect of corruption eradication: the bureaucracy and the judiciary. All the stakeholders understand that any significant advancement in uprooting Indonesia’s systemic corruption depends on the success of bureaucratic and judicial reform. Because these institutions are vital parts of the corruption ecosystem, changing them into clean instruments for combating corruption will destroy the old system, providing a basis for further, better and faster national reforms. This is why the KPK is actively involved in national bureaucratic reform.

The KPK is also rallying public support by raising awareness. This is done through educating the public about the danger and impact of corruption, ways to avoid being involved in corruption, and other motivations to stop corruption in Indonesia. The activities showed some positive results when the fabricated cases against the two commissioners aroused a show of great public support for the KPK, because of its good performance and the integrity of its personnel.

Progress in repressive law enforcement

The KPK’s caseload in law enforcement activities as of 15 December 2009 is as follows:

KPK cases that have reached a final decision as of 15 December 2009 are as follows:

Among the corruption cases handled by the KPK from 2004 to 2009 were a variety against high-ranking officials, as follows:
• 17 members of parliament
• Five ministers or heads at ministerial level
• Five provincial governors
• One governor of the central bank and four deputy governors
• 18 mayors and heads of regents or districts
• Six commissioners of general elections; judicial figures; anti-monopoly commissioners
• Three ambassadors and four consul-generals, including a former chief of the National Police
• Senior prosecutors, the KPK’s own investigators, many high-ranking government officials at echelon I & II (director general, secretary general, deputy, director, etc.)
• High-ranked private sector executives involved in corruption in the public sector

The KPK has a 100 per cent conviction rate in all cases that it has processed that have reached the courts.

Recovering stolen assets

One of the best indicators of the KPK’s success in performing its repressive law-enforcement activities is in the return of stolen state assets. During its early days, the KPK was criticized for not being able to recover assets exceeding the cost of running the KPK. Recently, this situation has changed dramatically. Whereas in 2005 it returned just under seven billion rupiah to the treasury, and in 2006 just under 13 billion, in 2007 the figure was over 48 billion, and in 2008 and 2009 more than 411 billion and 142 billion respectively.

The KPK’s success in recovering assets was supported by some internal factors, which include:

1. The independence of the KPK;
2. Complete law-enforcement authority (pre-investigation, investigation, prosecution) of criminal acts of corruption;
3. Authority to supervise and coordinate the handling of corruption cases by all other law-enforcement agencies;
4. Authority to tap and record conversations;
5. No need for clearance from any authority before initiating a case against a high-profile public official;
6. Authority to request data on the wealth, tax details and financial affairs of suspects from banks or other financial institutions;
7. Authority to order relevant institutions to block the accounts of a suspect, defendant, or connected party;
8. Authority to temporarily halt financial transactions, trade transactions, and other forms of contracts, or to temporarily annul permits, licenses and concessions if there is an indication of corruption;
9. Authority to order relevant institutions to ban individuals from travelling abroad;
10. Capacity to request assistance from Interpol Indonesia or Law Enforcement Agencies of other nations; and,
11. Comprehensive information technology support.

Under certain circumstances the KPK can take over an indictment or a prosecution, for example, if a report about an act of corruption has been ignored, if the processing of a case goes on for too long without a valid reason, if the handling process is itself mired by corrupt acts, or if the case has been hampered by executive, legislative, or judicial interference.

Aside from performing direct repressive law enforcement by processing cases for the Anti-Corruption Court, the KPK also coordinates and supervises law enforcement officers from the police and the Attorney General’s Office. Coordination of law-enforcement efforts is conducted by way of meetings. The results of such coordinating meetings include: (i) establishing a pattern for coordination and supervision in investigation and prosecution of corruption cases, (ii) establishing mechanisms for the taking over of corruption cases by involved institutions, (iii) establishing of coordination and supervision material, including the synchronisation of corruption case data that had been reported or transferred to the KPK, as well as establishing criteria for certain corruption cases that need to be supervised.

Progress on prevention

The Deputy for Prevention also conducts coordination, including: (i) coordinating with the Minister of Home Affairs to push for the realization of the National Single Identification Number program, (ii) coordinating with the internal monitoring units of all government institutions, (iii) coordinating with government institutions and State Owned Enterprises in making inventories of all state assets under the unauthorized control of officials and former officials, resulting in several officials having returned assets voluntarily, (iv) coordinating with the State Ministry of State Owned Enterprises to obtain information on public officials who also act as Commissaries at State Owned Enterprises (with all the conflicts of interest that entail in that sort of arrangement), and, (v) coordinating with the State Ministry of Administrative Reform (KemPan) to trigger national bureaucratic reform. Developing transparency with regards to public officials by abolishing multiple commissions/duties is deemed by the KPK to be a real effort in avoiding conflicts of interest, and is one way of implementing articles 7 and 8 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, which Indonesia ratified and adopted through the promulgation of Law No. 7 of 2006.

The KPK also continues to improve the transparency of how public officials conduct their affairs by increasing the compliance with Wealth Reporting, as well as the effectiveness with which such reports are examined and confirmed. Other than this, the KPK’s continued monitoring of gratification (the giving of gifts to public officials which sets a precedent for corrupting behaviour down the road, or given in the interest of maintaining corrupting relations) further supports its push for transparency as a means of prevention. In 2005 the number of gratification reports was 50; in 2006, 326; in 2007, 249; in 2008, 224; and up to 15 December in 2009, 287. The rate of Wealth Reporting compliance from 2004 to August 2009 is shown in the following graph:

The KPK realizes that corruption sometimes is triggered by a bad system, so it also uses its monitoring authority to evaluate the administrative management systems of state and public institutions to provide recommendations to these institutions and to monitor the implementation of the recommendations. The KPK has reviewed some systems and institutions, for example: the land agency, import administration system, state budgeting, taxation, state treasury, and management of migrant labor. The choice of which administration system should be reviewed is based on the size of the budget under the system, the numbers prone to corruption due to systemic weaknesses, and its impact on the national economy and public service. Working closely with the relevant institutions, the KPK is now monitoring the implementation of these institutions’ action plan.

Some studies and surveys have been done to make the efforts to eradicate corruption more effective and efficient. Surveys on public perceptions towards the KPK, an integrity survey to assess the level of public services in some institutions, an anti-corruption initiatives assessment survey, a study on good governance in regions and the disseminating of the implementation of its principles to other regions, a study on electronic public procurement, and a study on good corporate governance in some state-owned enterprises and private companies that are listed on the stock exchange are some examples.

In the longer term, for the creation of a new generation that rejects corruption the KPK has anti-corruption education programs. These include various campaigns, the development of anti-corruption modules for school, anti-corruption education programs, disseminating the “Honesty Shop” concept (pay for what you take by putting the money in a box, not giving it to a cashier), recruitment of anti-corruption cadres, and seminars.

International cooperation

The aforementioned Integrity Survey was conducted after comprehensive cooperation and capacity building of the KPK’s knowledge management on integrity with South Korean agencies, namely the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the Korean Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC). By using concepts of measuring and improving integrity from the South Koreans, the KPK has initiated intense dialogue in improving the integrity scores of the lowest-scoring public institutions. Some other tools learned from the ACRC include anti-corruption initiatives assessment and corruption impact assessment.

The KPK has also learned much from its cooperation and correspondence with many fellow anti-corruption agencies in South East Asia, East Asia and the South Pacific, such as the Malaysian Badan Pencegah Rasuah; the Brunei Biro Mencegah Rasuah; the Thai National Counter Corruption Commission; the Philippine Ombudsman; the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption; the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption; and the Singapore Corrupt Pratices Investigation Bureau. Cooperation ranges across law enforcement activities, training, and dialogue on corruption prevention.

The other internal key success factor of the KPK is its human resource management, internal whistle-blowing system, and compliance to its code of conduct. The human resource management system includes independent and open recruitment, performance measurement and evaluation, career paths, better remuneration compared to other government agencies, and allowances based on performance

Synergy between repression and prevention

As mentioned above, the current commissioners are keen on developing a more synergistic relationship between preventive and repressive law enforcement activities. Examples of this include the conducting of raids on bribery at the Customs and Excise premises in May 2008, as well as analysis of internal rules at Bank Indonesia.

As an independent agency that is fully responsible for corruption prevention efforts, the KPK is actively involved in planning and implementing bureaucratic reform at various pilot institutions in Indonesia. The Ministry of Finance is one institution that has implemented bureaucratic reform efforts. For certain service units under the Ministry of Finance, such as the Tanjung Priok Customs General Services Office, salary improvements were substantial. Unfortunately, those salary improvements did not improve the performance or integrity of the personnel. Bribery was a common transgression, even as reform efforts were being conducted. The KPK, in cooperation with the Customs and Excise Office’s Internal Compliance Division, performed raids at the Green Line (processing of documents from credible companies) and the Red Line (processing documents for dangerous goods) at the office, as well as on the vehicles used by officers working there. The raid involved around 60 KPK personnel, and they discovered evidence of bribery amounting to USD 50,000 in several hours of operations. From the raids, several officials at the Customs and Excise Office may be processed further by the legal system. It is hoped that the raids will provide shock therapy for institutions that have not heeded recommendations, encourage them to improve themselves and encourage users of public services to stop offering bribes.

The KPK has processed a case involving an official from Bank Indonesia. It also assisted the bank by intensifying preventive efforts, analysing Bank Indonesia internal rules that created potential conflicts of interest, including those regarding legal protection for personnel and regarding work-related travel.

The future

The KPK is determined that to eradicate corruption requires not only shock therapy by repressive actions, but also many prevention efforts. The KPK has been learning from counterparts in other nations, especially from Hong Kong, that any serious anti-corruption program will need a minimum of two decades to produce real results. The KPK is dedicated to uprooting corruption in the long term, and indeed its strategies as stated above are long-term approaches. The KPK recognizes also that corruption is becoming more and more globalized, and that international cooperation is vital to counter the complicated and sophisticated machinations of criminals, as well as participation and support from the public. We are confident that the future will bring more fruitful cooperation in anti-corruption efforts within this region and beyond.