"Looking at the latest development, without losing any sense of collective optimism, it would appear that corruption would take a long time to eliminate from Indonesia without any exceptional surprise in its elimination (effort)," Wahid said.
The corrupt are "recruiting" people faster than initially predicted, he said at an online seminar on 'Examining Constitutional Court Decision over UU KPK (Corruption Elimination Commission Law) that ANTARA joined here on Saturday.
Referring to data collected by Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) in the first half of 2020, he said that at least 14 of the 393 people allegedly involving in corruption cases were aged under 30.
Data collected by the Supreme Court has supported ICW's findings, he added.
Out of the 1951 corruption cases recorded in Indonesia as of September 18, 2020, at least 553, or 28.3 percent, have involved people in the age range of 30-39 years, Wahid noted.
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"This short illustration should open our eyes to the dangerous risk corruption poses to Indonesian people," he asserted.
There is a long-term damage that corruption can do to people's prosperity, he said.
For instance, a corrupted infrastructure budget could result in low-quality infrastructure, shorten its lifespan, and raise maintenance costs, he elaborated.
"(Corruption could) delay important commodity distribution, raise the price of commodities, lower citizens' purchasing power, and could ultimately result in widespread poverty," he added.
He said he had conducted a review of the KPK Bill (RUU KPK) when it was released and provided notes as a form of contribution towards corruption elimination.
"It would appear that our voice and rejection noise from across Indonesia have not yielded an appropriate response, because the KPK Law ended up being ratified by the DPR (House of Representatives) on September 17, 2019," he remarked.
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Translator: Luqman Hakim, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
