Corruption prevention measures across the public administration

Various policies and mechanisms have been implemented to improve integrity in the public sector. A relatively progressive strategy includes organising a merit system, an essential part of Government Regulation No. 17/2020 regarding the management of civil servants.¹ To accelerate the regulation, the National Corruption Prevention Joint Secretariat and the Indonesian Civil Service Commission (KASN) have evaluated the merit system’s implementation in 23 ministries and state agencies, 24 cities and regency governments, and 11 provincial governments. The assessment results show that only three government agencies are rated “good” while the others are categorised as “poor”.²

Indonesia has made some progress, significantly improving the transparency and accountability of the asset disclosure system (LHKPN). The KPK provides public access to compliance percentage reports on its website³ and on the Anti-corruption Clearing House.⁴ Even so, the latest KPK data shows that the level of compliance with LHKPN nationally, which includes the executive, judiciary, legislative and SOEs, is still relatively low (38.9 per cent). Of the total 356,854 agencies required to report, 138,803 have reported, while the remaining 218,051 have not.⁵

Challenges to effective commitment implementation
To date, there have been no significant attempts to enact specific regulations in the form of laws, government regulations in lieu of laws, presidential decrees or presidential instructions to regulate conflicts of interest.⁶

Such regulation is vital to curb the growing problem where public officials occupy multiple positions. Not infrequently, officials are drawn from political parties that support the government to occupy positions in the bureaucracy and state-owned enterprises.

In August 2020, KASN noted that 490 civil servants were reported not to be neutral in the general election, and 372 of them were sanctioned for violating neutrality.⁷ This problem should be handled by the staffing officers (PPK). However, the PPK follow-up was considered slow as they seemed reluctant to impose sanctions from KASN. The condition of ASN, which is not neutral in politics, is certainly prone to corruption because the provision of public services and procurement will only benefit certain parties or groups, not the public as a whole.

Opportunities to accelerate commitment implementation
An effective bureaucratic organisation through the merit system approach has been included in the Stranas PK. However, it the problem of nepotism and kinship ties still exist, from downstream to upstream or starting from admissions and transfers to promotions.

The non-neutral practice of buying and civil servant selling positions has become a common practice at all levels of personnel management.⁸ Furthermore, the data management of the civil servants’ qualifications, competencies and performance has not been managed in an integrated manner.

Stranas PK can accelerate the development of a single data management for civil servants and at the same time encourage the selection process of civil servant management, which is based on qualifications, competencies and performance without discrimination.⁹

Recommendations
The KASN needs to push for the elimination the function of staffing officers (PPK) for political officials such as ministers and regional heads to reduce interference with the bureaucracy and in turn reduce the potential for office transactions and violations of neutrality. The PPK position needs to be given to the civil servant official with the highest rank in an agency, namely the secretary general or regional secretary.

PPK need to immediately impose sanctions for civil servants who have been proven not to be neutral in the election based on the joint decree (SKB) of five ministries/agencies between the state personnel agency (BKN), election supervisory agency (Bawaslu), Ministry of Home Affairs, Kemenpan-RB and KASN on guidelines for monitoring the neutrality of ASN.¹⁰ Through the SKB, ASN, which was declared in violation by KASN but not followed up by the PPK, their personnel administration data will be blocked in the civil servant service application system (SAPK). The blocking will remain until the PPK follows up on the KASN recommendation.¹¹

The KASN also needs to collaborate with the regional government in developing guidelines on conflicts of interest for civil servants following the anticipated regional election at the end of this year. The guidance also includes discussing ethics in using social media among the civil servants, particularly in supporting candidates in the political arena.