Laode Muhammad Syarif (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

In an interview with The Jakarta Post, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairman Laode Muhammad Syarif discussed the legacy to be left by the current commission to the country, his work as the antigraft body’s leader and terror attacks against him and other KPK employees. The following are excerpts from the interview with the Post’s Kharishar Kahfi.

Question: Late last year, you said that you would push for a draft revision of the 2001 Corruption Law as part of your legacy as KPK commissioner. How is that going?

Answer: We have finished the draft and have handed it over informally to the President and other parties in the government, hoping it will be deliberated by them along with the House of Representatives in the near future. They’ve said they will study it first.

We have been pushing for the law to be revised for a long time because our current Corruption Law is still lacking in several respects such as provisions on corruption in the private sector, illicit enrichment as well as asset recovery, according to reviews by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and other countries. Those provisions were included in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), which we ratified in 2006.

The current KPK leadership is often criticized for failing to solve certain cases, including the graft cases in state-owned port operator PT Pelindo II implicating its former president director Richard Joost Lino and the one in national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia implicating former president director Emirsyah Satar as a suspect. Will the cases in these state-owned companies be solved within the last six months of your term?

Regarding the Garuda case, we can complete the investigation by late June, as investigators have already obtained all necessary documents from other countries. Meanwhile, in the Pelindo II case, we’ve been hindered in collecting evidence in China as authorities there are unwilling to assist our investigation.

Some of these cases have been unsolved since the previous leadership. We assure you every case handled during our term will be solved comprehensively. However, without cooperation from every relevant party, it will be difficult.

Current leaders have been criticized for being indecisive in enforcing internal ethics investigations into recalcitrant employees, also for letting internal rifts deteriorate compared with in previous terms. How do you respond?

We have been working hard on resolving these rifts. The principle of zero tolerance for ethics violations has always been enforced. We have solved some of the problems. However, we have not been able to solve some others because the implicated employees have returned to their original institutions.

There have been allegations recently that some KPK employees hold conservative Islamic beliefs and this has had an influence on investigations in several cases. What is your position on this matter?

Regarding our employees, we never think about their religious or political affiliations, or their ethnic backgrounds. It is only about whether they can work to fight corruption or not. It is also not true that we only prosecute members of certain political parties, but leave other parties untouched. We have prosecuted members of every party that has held seats in the House of Representatives.

People should not stigmatize us in the KPK for our political or sectarian affiliations. If this brouhaha is allowed to continue we could lose the public trust, thus hindering us from doing our job.

The KPK is now included in the national strategy for corruption prevention. However, many believe there has been little significant progress on the implementation of such a strategy. What is the progress with this prevention strategy?

It is wrong to say the implementation of the corruption prevention strategy has yet to make progress, as we have recommended steps for every ministry and state institution to be taken in implementing the strategy. We have also reported the progress to the President. Since then, there have been changes within the respective institutions.

Of course we are yet to be satisfied with the progress. Ministries and other institutions should respond to the recommendations more quickly. Moreover, this is not the work of one institution only. There are at least four other ministries involved in the strategy and they should also focus on their respective responsibilities according to the national strategy.

As the dust of the 2019 election settles in a few months, do you hope the case of the acid attack against KPK investigator Novel Baswedan will be solved soon?

I have been hoping that the National Police along with their fact-finding team would find the perpetrator behind the attack against Novel, as well as terror attacks against me and chairman Agus Rahardjo. I think the police should and will find these people behind the attacks against us, if they can find and prosecute terrorists. These cases should be solved completely in order to prevent them from being politicized.

I view the instance of a terror attack as a debt against me. Furthermore, it is not a good example for the state. If law enforcers are attacked, where is the state? Where is the leadership of the country, the National Police and the State Intelligence Agency?

We cannot afford to be defeated by corrupt people. By leaving the case unsolved, I believe that the state lets the bad guys become part of our state. We cannot let corrupt people be part of the state.

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