Director of the Directorate of Education and Community Services (Dikyanmas) of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Giri Suprapdiono, at the opening ceremony for regional head candidates and regional head election organizers (Pilkada) in Jakarta, Wednesday (30/9/2020).
Regional head corruption case is still a challenge for this nation. “Based on the records of the KPK between 2004 and May 2020, there were 119 corruption cases involving mayors/regents and their deputies. Then, there were 21 cases of corruption committed by the governor, “said Giri.
Meanwhile, Professor of Public Administration at the University of Indonesia, Eko Prasojo believes that regional heads play a role in strengthening the usefulness of democracy in Indonesia, because the corrupt practices of regional heads have so far shown that democracy does not provide sufficient benefits in economic, social and well-managed governance indicators.
“In several countries, public administration reformation has an important role in helping governance in achieving national development goals,” said Eko.
Furthermore, the Coordinator of the KPK Region VIII Prevention Coordination Task Force, Dian Patria, said that the corruption mode of regional heads is not far from three ways; bribery and gratuities in issuing permits, buying and selling of positions, and kickbacks in the procurement of goods and services.
Regional heads’ corruption case, continued Dian, is closely related to “remuneration” for financial support from donors, from the nomination process to the campaign to the voting process.
“In recent years, the KPK has assisted regional heads in efforts to improve local governance. The main thing is the coordination and monitoring program contained in the KPK Integrated Prevention Coordination and Supervision Program (Korsupgah), covering eight focus areas, “said Dian.
Meanwhile, the Chief Expert of the Presidential Staff Office, Rumadi Ahmad, said the importance of community participation in realizing candidates for regional heads with integrity. Relatively, the most important thing in an effort to strengthen voters is political education for voters. This is intended so that voters are not only objects, but have awareness and intelligence in choosing candidates for leaders.
“How is the community’s participation? There are at least five points that need to be done by the public or voters, namely strengthening the cultural value of anti-corruption, understanding what corruption is and how it is used, being part of efforts to prevent corruption, not being part of the criminal act of corruption itself, and avoiding corrupt acts. “Rumadi suggested.
Choose the Honest One
As an effort to prevent corruption in the 2020 Pilkada simultaneously, the KPK is again holding the Pilkada Integrity Program with the slogan “Choose the Honest, the Honest Chosen.”
Several forms of activities consist of an Online National Seminar in order to socialize the values of integrity in the election process, a Talkshow for Choosing Local Leader Candidates, 9 Series of Online Preparation Classes for Organizers, Participants and Voters in Elections, and an LHKPN Declaration for Local Leaders Candidates (Cakada).
The target of this program is 270 regional Pilkada participants, covering 9 provinces, 37 cities and 224 districts.
Through this series of debriefing Online National Seminars and online classes, the KPK hopes to provide an understanding, especially for local leaders candidates and election organizers, in understanding the modes of corruption in the elections and the procedures for handling them.
In addition, after being elected, it is hoped that the local leader candidates will understand the main problems of running a government that is free from corruption. And, no less important is the effort to educate voters to exercise their voting rights by selecting candidates for local leaders with integrity, competence and trust.
This program was structured as a response to efforts to prevent political corruption. How public officials elected through the political process manipulate public office for personal gain. Most of the owners of these powers neglect to think and act in the interests of the people.
Instead, they use the power to determine public policy solely for their own interests. In fact, position is only a tool to be able to produce policies that favor the interests of citizens. So, the policy goal must be for the welfare of society.
The KPK believes that preventing it will start with three efforts, namely first, focusing on the upstream, how to ensure the political process for electing public officials through a democratic process with integrity, secondly, concentration on the potential for the emergence of buying and selling power and third, designing a community empowerment strategy.
Through the slogan “Choose the Honest, the Honestly Chosen”, the KPK empowers the public to become voters who are smart and have integrity in choosing candidates for local leaders. There are several criteria that can be used, including checking his track record, from his profile to legal cases.
Then, don’t choose a candidate who offers money, because that means he is part of the problem of money politics. Then, if he is a state administrator (PN), such as an incumbent or other public official who is obliged to report LHKPN, then the public can check his compliance in submitting LHKPN via the https://elhkpn.kpk.go.id/ site.
In addition, if the candidate is an incumbent, the public can also check his anti-corruption commitment in the form of his performance achievements during his tenure in building governance in his area. The public can access the information via https://jaga.id/j Jendela-daerah/
Regarding this preparation, it is one of the KPK efforts to prevent potential corruption by local leaders from the beginning, namely during the campaign, implementation, until the election of the definitive local leader.
Candidates for local leader who received training, namely the Bangka Belitung Province, Yogyakarta Special Region (DI), South Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi, through teleconference media.
The main agenda for the briefing was to build synergy and commitment from the start between the KPK and local leader candidates to build good governance.
This first briefing presented 3 (three) speakers, namely Professor of Public Administration at the University of Indonesia Eko Prasojo, Coordinator of the KPK Region VIII Prevention Coordination Task Force Dian Patria, and Main Expert Staff of the Presidential Staff Office, Rumadi Ahmad.
This first activity was also attended by the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and Pilkada organizers in the four regions concerned. In addition, this briefing was also attended by all candidates for local leaders in the four regions, consisting of 1 (one) province, 3 (three) cities and 23 (twenty three) regencies.
Anang Fadhilah
