Indonesia’s ongoing battle against corruption appears to be making little headway as fewer people expressed enthusiasm for the government’s efforts to prevent illicit transactions and prosecute graft perpetrators over the past two years, a recent study by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) has found.
The survey, for which 2,000 people were polled across the archipelago between November 29 and December 3, showed that only 28.3 per cent of respondents noticed an improvement in the government’s graft prevention efforts – a decline from the 42.7 per cent recorded in a similar survey conducted in late 2018.
Similarly, only 22.2 per cent of the respondents believed law enforcement against graft perpetrators had improved. That also marks a significant drop from the 44.1 per cent recorded in a 2018 survey.
“It is a sharp decline. This could be a signal for us to see that people perceive corruption to be getting worse in terms of prevention and law enforcement,” LSI executive director Djayadi Hanan said during an online forum held by the research firm on December 6.
Furthermore, the latest survey also found that a majority of 45.6 per cent of the respondents believed the number of corruption cases had increased over the last two years, whereas only 23 per cent noticed a downtrend in reported graft during the same period.
Djayadi said: “There are far more respondents perceiving an uptrend in reported graft . . . This means that overall public perception [of anti-graft efforts] is still negative.”
Despite the general discontent with the government’s sluggish action on graft, 50.2 per cent of the survey respondents were “satisfied” with the performance of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
The poll reflected relatively positive public sentiment since only 37.5 per cent were “unsatisfied” with the anti-graft body’s accomplishments.
A significant majority of respondents or 69.5 per cent considered KPK to be best-suited to lead the country’s anticorruption efforts.
The survey also found that 26.9 per cent of respondents were of the opinion that the controversial KPK Law revision had weakened the anti-graft body, whereas only 23.3 per cent believed otherwise.
Meanwhile, 14.4 per cent of respondents believed the revision had not significantly impacted the KPK, while 35.4 per cent did not know or did not answer.
THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK