"We agreed to develop a paperless system to be carried out online. This will enable a travel ban to be implemented immediately. Using a courier is prone to leakage," KPK Deputy Chairman Bambang Widjojanto said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Directorate General of Immigration will launch an online blacklisting system for corruptors in an effort to increase efforts to fight corruption.

"We agreed to develop a paperless system to be carried out online. This will enable a travel ban to be implemented immediately. Using a courier is prone to leakage," KPK Deputy Chairman Bambang Widjojanto said here on Thursday.

On the occasion, the Directorate General of immigration of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights was represented by Immigration Director General Bambang Irawan.

"After the cooperation agreement document has been signed, a technical team would work immediately to design the system. The concept of the system is actually simple, namely communications must be done with a paperless means. When the KPK makes a decision to ban a person from traveling abroad, it should not send a letter through a courier but through an email. This would enable the immigration officials to take an immediate decision," Bambang said.

In the meantime, Bambang Irawan said that at present the immigration office has applied a system called Immigration Management Information System (SIMKIM).

"We have used the SIMKIM that is connected to the immigration data center with 44 major immigration examination places so that the immigration has conducted a real time examination. With the agreement with the anti-graft agency, what remains to be done is to add the request for a blacklist from the KPK to the system," Bambang said.

According to KPK Deputy Chief Bambang, the cooperation on the online blacklisting system was needed because corruption has developed into an international crime.

"Criminals are now using regions outside the areas of their crimes to hide, but when they cross various countries they will pass by a crossing system where immigrations have authorities, this means that immigrations play a very strategic role in combating corruption," he said.

He said that sometime in the past the KPK had the experience in handling corruptors fleeing overseas such as M Nazaruddin who was involved in a corruption case of an athlete housing complex development. Nazaruddin fled overseas and passed by the borders of 15 countries.

The same also happened to Nunun Nurbaeti, a suspect in the election of a senior deputy governor of Bank Indonesia who was arrested in Thailand. The other one is Neneng Sri Wahyuni, a suspect in the solar-power electricity plant project.

"So, we would like to welcome the Directorate General of Immigration as an important part of the efforts to eliminate corruption," the KPK deputy chief said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2012