The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), as Indonesia's anti-corruption institution, is scheduled to chair the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG) meetings during the G20 Presidency of Indonesia, including the 1st ACWG Meeting to be held on March 28-31, and the second meeting on July 5-8 this year.
The KPK has held a series of discussions to filter inputs pertaining to priority issues that Indonesia is push during the 2022 G20 that involve relevant institutions, law enforcement authorities, civil society representatives, academicians, and international organization.
The anti-graft agency, as Indonesia's focal point for the G20 ACWG, has been participating in various meetings of ACWG, starting from the first meeting in 2011.
Indonesia also served as the co-chair along with France as the G20 chair in 2011. Ever since, the KPK has actively provided inputs to the negotiation process for various agreement documents produced at the G20 ACWG.
In fact, the KPK encourages the G20 standard and agreement to be implemented domestically, with the objective of bolstering efforts to eradicate corruption.
KPK Deputy Chief Lili Pintauli Siregar deemed that the KPK, as the focal point for the G20 ACWG in 2022, has a special right in suggesting issues concerning corruption eradication that will be discussed.
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The KPK suggested four priority issues within the G20 ACWG, with the first pertaining to increasing the role of audit in corruption eradication.
The auditor's role can be bolstered within the corruption prevention program. In addition, several nations may have observed that the auditor's role can be expanded to serve as a supervisor, she noted.
The second issue revolves around the public's participation and anti-corruption education.
The public's participation is necessary in corruption prevention and can monitor the performance of policy makers, so that they will not conduct corruption, Siregar noted.
The third issue relates to the regulation framework and supervision of the legal professionals' role in the laundering of corrupt money.
Consultants, who communicate with lawyers and deal with tax consultants, are the ones who assist in corruption, she pointed out.
The fourth issue is eradicating corruption in the renewable energy sector. With regard to this issue, Siregar pointed out that several countries had yet to agree to it.
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To this end, Siregar expects an agreement to be reached in three out of these four matters, so that recommendations can be formulated, and they can become regulations for G20 member countries to follow.
In addition to these four issues, the KPK includes other matters to be discussed, such as corruption in sports, such as football, customs, and infrastructure.
Improvement
Indonesia Transparency International (TII) released the 2021 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in which the nation had scored 38, an increase by one point as compared to the previous score of 37.
With this score, Indonesia ranked 96th out of the 180 surveyed countries. The score is still below the average of 43.
This increase by one point was supported by various factors, such as a significant rise in the corruption risk factors that businessmen encounter in the economic sector.
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However, TII noted that Indonesia still faces serious challenges, specifically in the areas of political corruption and law enforcement, with no significant improvement as yet in these aspects.
KPK Information and Data Deputy Mochammad Hadiyana, as the chair of G20 ACWG, noted that the 2021 CPI result shows that Indonesia still had some pending work to be completed.
The G20 Presidency is expected to be a momentum to comprehensively improve corruption eradication in Indonesia.
To this end, the KPK included two of the 2021 CPI recommendations into the G20 ACWG's priority issues.
The first concerns the necessity to return the independence and authority of the power monitoring agency, while the second revolved around the need for seriousness in handling cross-country corruption.
The increasing points in several economical indexes concerning the ease of doing business cannot be observed partially since doing business cannot be made easy because of bribe, Hadiyana remarked.
Meanwhile, fixing the political system that is prone to corruption is no simple task.
This is because improvements have to be made in a complex manner, not just in political parties but also in the general election for the utilization of information technology.
Echoing the same view as Hadiyana, Indonesia Civil 20 (C20) ACWG Chair Dadang Trisasongko remarked that the result of the 2021 CPI is important to be brought to the G20 ACWG forum.
This is because it becomes an opportunity for countries to eradicate corruption globally, either through improving their own countries or through a bilateral agreement.
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The G20 plays an important role in eradicating corruption globally because nations involved within the G20 contribute to 85 percent of the global economy, 79 percent of global trade, and 65 percent of the world's population.
Trisasongko explained that nine of the 20 countries in G20 have a CPI score of below 50. Moreover, countries within the G20 have an average score of 54.
Along with Brazil, Turkey, and Argentina, Indonesia has a score of 38 and is ranked 96th out of the 180 surveyed countries.
In other words, these countries have a relatively low anti-corruption score when compared to the global average score that reached 43.
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Training
Welcoming the G20, the KPK collaborated with the Foreign Affairs Ministry for holding the Conference Officer G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group 2022 training.
The competency training, held on February 7-9, 2022, had 35 members participating in a hybrid format.
The participants came from various units in the KPK that will later be assigned to the committee organizing the G20 ACWG forum.
The KPK has formed a special work team through the Leadership Decision Letter No. 71 of 2022 on Forming, Preparation, and Execution of the Indonesia Presidency Work Team during the G20 ACWG.
The team is tasked with conducting administrative, logistical, and other technical preparations to support the series of G20 ACWG activities.
The KPK stressed that corruption had turned out to be one of the extraordinary crimes that can be intercounty in nature in terms of its perpetrators and the money flow.
Corruption has also been proven to affect the global economy.
The G20 ACWG forum is expected to produce an agreement that can proffer real benefits and results in the efforts to counter corruption, both nationally and globally.
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Translator: Benardy F, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
Copyright © ANTARA 2022
