Frenky Simanjuntak
Inspired
by Orwell
What does a
corruption-buster do when hassled for a backhander?
Pay up and
get back to business because protests waste time and temper – or berate the
official and call the cops?
Raising
Cain isn’t smart when the gouger wears a uniform.
This was
the dilemma faced by Transparency International’s Frenky Simanjuntak when being
fingerprinted by the police for a clean slate certificate required for a
foreign scholarship.
“To be
honest I paid the Rp 10,000 (US $1),” he said.
“It wasn’t a legal charge but I reasoned the money would have gone into
the staff fund. Some argue this is
disguised welfare for people on low wages – but it’s still wrong.
“Though the
police have the highest bribery rate in Indonesia with up to 40 per cent
corrupt according to TI research, I have a little sympathy for their dilemmas.
In some cases they have cars but no fuel, so resort to shaking down
motorcyclists for gas to maintain their patrols. Reform must be integrated.”
Big
corruptors outrage the electorate and inflame headlines with their gross
behavior. But it’s the petty everyday
graspers who are hardest to eradicate because they’re tolerated by the public
as the price of doing business.
“Corruption
thrived for the 30 odd years of Soeharto,” said the former manager of TI’s
economic governance department in Indonesia, “but decentralization has made the
problem worse.
“We are
making progress in countering corruption, though it’s a slow process. There’s a strong need for education about
the damage caused to the country, but so far most effort has been put into
prosecution.”
Indonesia
ranks alongside Egypt at 118 according to TI’s corruption perception index,
slipping down from 100 the previous year. New Zealand, Finland and Denmark are
the least corrupt, all at number one.
The US ranks 13.
TI is a
non-profit organization operating in more than 100 countries and promoting good
governance. It is funded by agencies,
governments and individuals and publishes the donor list on the Internet.
Frenky, 38,
quit his job in Jakarta this year after winning a NZ government scholarship to
study public policy. He listed
transparency, ease of accessing information and good law enforcement as key
factors in clean administration, along with social intolerance of
dishonesty.
Shortly
after arriving in the South Pacific nation he saw media hounding of a
government politician who had been rude to a hotel waiter. Public distaste of the policy maker’s
behavior forced the man to quit parliament.
Commented Frenky wryly: “That would not have happened in Indonesia.
“Our
education system is a disgrace.
Schooling is not about understanding integrity but rote learning. We
should be teaching honesty and accountability from the very beginning.
“At TI I
worked with the private sector in anti-corruption projects. Foreign bosses often asked: ‘How can we do
anything here without paying bribes?’
“The answer
is to join with other companies where all agree not to support corruption. Overseas countries that have laws
prohibiting their nationals from bribing public servants in Indonesia and
elsewhere are effective. They provide
the initiative for business people to work together.”
Before
joining TI Frenky worked as a researcher with another Non Government
Organization, the now defunct Center for East Indonesian Affairs under
sociologist Dr Ignas Kleden.
The center
closed when overseas funding evaporated, though not before Frenky had spent six
years on conflict resolution in Kalimantan between indigenous Dayaks and
Madurese transmigrants, and in Ambon between Muslims and Christians.
He was
involved in voter education projects leading to the 2004 election particularly
in Papua, a province he first visited as an anthropology student on fieldwork
from the University of Indonesia.
“The things
I’d heard about Papua were very scary, but that wasn’t true,” he said. “They are intelligent and funny people and I
really enjoy their company.
“There has
to be a peaceful resolution to the problems after pulling out the
military. But I don’t want to see West
Papua secede.” His wife Florencia
Yuniferti also works as a university researcher in the province.
Frenky’s
track into the dirty world of corruption started as a child when he read
British writer George Orwell’s famous allegory Animal Farm in English, a
language he’d been encouraged to study by his parents.
“For me
politicians were like the pigs in the book,” he said. “They talk glibly and make lots of promises. There’s always the possibility of change,
however dire the situation.”
The
exception on his loathe list is former president Gus Dur - “a powerful Muslim
leader with an open-minded approach.”
Frenky’s
father, an executive with a fertiliser company, traveled widely overseas,
returning with books and stories of a wider world to grow the imaginations of
his four children.
The
Christian Batak family moved from Palembang in South Sumatra to the capital
when Frenky was a babe. So he considers
himself a Jakartan raised in an ethnically diverse district where, he said, he
never experienced prejudice.
At
university he demonstrated for democracy and became a political activist,
though “not hard core, and never arrested”.
He started working for NGOs “because I felt a responsibility to be an
agent of change – and wanted to work where it matters.”
Though
shrinking from the idealist label he added: “I want to contribute something, to
myself, the people around me – and the community.”
After two
years studying public policy in NZ he’ll be looking for a position with the Komisi
Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK – the Corruption Eradication Commission) – if it
still exists after a new president is elected in 2014.
The job he
wants is in public education, not bugging hotel rooms and retrieving fat envelopes
from startled crooks in sting ops.
“The KPK
does a good job, but prosecution and prevention should be separate,” he said.
“We need to explain that corruption is stealing from our country, denying the
government money necessary for public works.
“You cannot
be a corruptor and morally pure. That
may not be the situation legally but it is so ethically.”
(First published in The Jakarta Post 10 June 2013}
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