EoF News (PEKANBARU) – Anti-corruption coalition called public to support the war against corruption as to eradicate the crime was not only the responsibility of Anti-corruption commission (KPK), law enforcement or any anti-corruption activists, but it is the responsibility of everybody.
Every 9 December, people all over the world commemorate International Anti-Corruption Day (ICD). In Indonesia, this momentum is no longer merely ceremonial, but has developed to be a wide community involvement in various activities aimed at increasing the awareness and fight against corruption.
In this year’s ICD commemoration, ICD coalition that consists of TI Indonesia, WWF-Indonesia, WALHI, Youth Against Corruption Community (KOMPAK), SERRUM art community, UNILA’s integrity community, and Anti-Corruption Youth Movement (GEPAK) organized a public campaign to celebrate ICD.
The coalition said that common people like artists, sociologist, students, youth and creative community also share similar concern that corruption is the enemy for all and it can be defended through many ways.
The role of civil society groups and media in the process of monitoring forestry business practices need to be optimalized so that all the undercover corruption cases can be brought to surface and hopefully could give a deterrent effect to the perpetrators. If functioned well, these roles can indicrectly contribute in reducing the state’s potential loss of revenue in the forestry sector.
Fathi Hanif, SIAP II Program Coordinator said, “Today, there is an urgent need of people’s participation to report, prevent, and control the practice of corruptions especially in the forestry sector. Public participation is expected to effectively prevent the corruption in forestry sector so that it can be immediately resolved.”
Corruption has also been a core issue in the natural resource management sector, particularly in the forestry sector. Bribery is supposed to be the biggest practice in the forestry activity permit and other activities that occupy forest areas.
llegal practices related to the licensing system of forest and land management that has occurred thousands times have never been exposed in the media while it is the main cause of forest degradation in Indonesia. This should be the a major concern in law enforcement in the fight against corruption.
The result of Corruption Perception Index 2013 released by Transparency International on 3 December 2013 placed Indonesia in rank 114 out of 177 with score of 32. Among the ASEAN countries, Indonesia is still below Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Phillippines and Thailand.
Though this time it rises from last year’s rank, the score is still below 50 which reflects that the corruption disease is still a common thing in Indonesia in many sectors from education, health, food to even resource management. Corruption in the natural resources management sector is not widely known by public hence it needs a society-based campaign management media.
Data from Human Right Watch revealed that in the period of 2007 – 2011, Indonesia has experienced a loss of revenue in the forestry sector amouned to 7 billion US dollars due to a weak forest governance.
The campaign is supported by USAID / SIAP II.