Jakarta. Corruption has come to its peak with the recent allegation of such crime committed by the leaders of a high state instituion in the country. For that reason, government is committed to fight against corruption to create justice and welfare for all.
“For this, President Jokowi and I are committed to clean up all acts of corruption. We will never retreat to make this country better for all of us,” affirmed Vice President Jusuf Kalla when officially opening the National Conference of Corruption Eradication (KNPK) held today at Gedung Nusantara V, the Parliament Complex, Senayan, Jakarta.
Corruption, according to Mr Kalla, is like an iceberg. What is seen is in fact much smaller than what is hiding underneath.
“Other than what we saw last night (on the House of Representatives’ ethics council MKD), corruption is latent and happens in almost all sectors, whether in executive, legislative, or judicative institutions,” he said.
Every one in the country, Mr Kalla added, should hand in hand fight against corruption so that national assets can be saved and people welfare will be achieved.
In such an effort, the Vice President would prefer preventive actions than curative ones. “The success of corruption eradication is not measured on the number of corruptors captured. Yet in fact, the smaller the number of corruptors sent to jail, the more successful the KPK (Corruption Eradication Commission) is,” said Mr Kalla.
One of the reasons triggering corruption, according to the Vice President, is luxurious life style. “We need to control our lifestyle so that it would not bring us to get into corrupted actions,” he said.
In the meantime, the Vice President underscored, there are many officials worried of making decisions as they do not want get into a corruption trap.
“This is also improper as this will be an obstacle for development in our country,” he said.
In his remarks, Mr Kalla also supported the idea of strengthening KPK as an anti-graft institution.
However, he reminded, KPK should also regularly make an evaluation over what it has done to make its anti-corruption campaigns and fighting remain effective.
Concluding his speech, the Vice President instructed any loophole for corruption, however small it is, must be shut and sealed by implementing a clean governance and bureaucratic reform.
“We need to have an accountable system to prevent corruption to happen in the future,” he said.
