Ever since its establishment, KPK has carried out several studies on the licensing system in Indonesia, and the results show that all stages along the licensing process are prone to corrupt practices. Various modes of extortions, illegal levies, and bribery are frequently found within the licensing system.
In an online discussion with the expert team from the Extortion Eradication Task Force (Satgas Saber Pungli) this week (27/4), KPK offered an important recommendation for the reorganization of the existing licensing and public service systems.
Freshly inaugurated on 22 April 2020 by Mahfud M.D., the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, the Satgas Saber Pungli expert team had included this discussion into their agenda to prepare for their work plan.
KPK found cases of bribery or extortions at the front offices of many institutions that provide licensing service. Such illicit practices will eventually undermine the government’s control over licensing services and incur significant loss of state income, especially the one in the form of non-tax state revenue (PNBP).
Thanks to continuous efforts to reorganize the system and to implement bureaucracy reform policy, extortions and bribery at front offices have gradually decreased. However, KPK soon realized that those corrupt practices have actually taken new forms. Extortions have since shifted to the back office, behind the façade of transparency in the front, said Ipi Maryati, the acting KPK Spokesperson.
She added that the reorganization of licensing system does not only involve regulations, but also the licensing institution itself, the system’s infrastructure, and bureaucratic ethics. “According to the results of the studies, we would like to offer several recommendations and improvement action plans for reorganizing our licensing and public service systems,” she said.
Firstly, KPK asked the government to set standards of public service and to fully and consistently enforce the Public Service Law. Public services at both central and local levels must be provided according to measurable minimum service standards, which include procedures for offering services, costs, quality, and mechanisms for filing complaints. One example is imposing the minimum service time for assisting a service user, which enables the government to measure an institution’s public service performance and to carry out evaluations, both periodic and incidental, in a more efficient way.
Secondly, KPK recommended the government to create a service delivery culture. This culture is oriented towards providing the best service for the public. This requires all state officials and agencies to undergo a massive image transformation from mere instruments of government’s power (in its narrow sense) to dedicated public servants (in a more general sense). This must be carried out successfully so that the state and all of its apparatuses can work harmoniously together to reach a noble goal as mandated by the 1945 Constitution, that is, to bring prosperity to the people.
Thirdly, KPK asked the government to develop a service system, either licensing or non-licensing, which is integrated and interconnected with all relevant agencies. This is important for strengthening the government’s control over the implementation of public services. The controlling system can then be further developed as part of the “stick and carrot” mechanism for all service users or as a part of the referencing system for checking the reasonableness of state income.
KPK also laid out their corruption risk map which had been generated using several instruments, one of which was the Integrity Assessment Survey. This survey has been regularly performed by KPK every year since 2006 in cooperation with Statistics Indonesia (BPS). By carrying out this survey, KPK sought to map potential corrupt practices at ministries, agencies, and local governments, said Ipi.