THE INDONESIAN CORRUPTION ERADICATION COMMISSION(KPK)
Mochammad Jasin*
I. INSTITUTIONAL HISTORIESThe Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission, or better known as KPK in
Indonesia, was established in 2003. The impetus to create KPK was the economic crises
during 1997, which subsequently also led to the downfall of President Soeharto. KPK
was established to combat the extraordinary crime of corruption in Indonesia, which is
rampant, systemic, and affecting the lives of practically everyone in the country. During
the crises, there was a sense that drastic measures were needed to tackle corruption,
which contributed to the country’s difficulties.

Before the KPK was formed, dating back to the 1950s, six institutions havehistorically been established to combat corruption. However, the lives of these previous
institutions were very short, mainly because they only focused on law enforcement. The
KPK’s much more solid track record owes much to its comprehensive contemplation of
how systemic corruption had become – law enforcement alone would never had sufficed;
the fight against corruption has to be accompanied by prevention efforts, supervision andcoordination of all law enforcement institutions involved in processing corruption cases.
And not less important is that it must include the participation of the public. All theseconcerns were provided for in Law No. 30 of 2002 on the Corruption Eradication*

Commissioner, Vice Chairman, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

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Commission, which sets out the KPK’s authority, powers and duties of law enforcementin the aforementioned comprehensive manner.

In addition to the Law No. 30 of 2002, in conducting law enforcement operations the
KPK follows the main Indonesian anti-corruption laws, namely Law No. 31 of 1999 as
amended by Law No. 20 of 2001 on The Eradication of Corruption, Law No. 28 of 1999
on Corruption-Free State Governance, and Law No. 8 of 2010 on Combating Money
Laundering Crime. KPK has power to handle money laundering crime as long as thepredicate crime is corruption.
II. KPK AUTHORITIES AND FEATURES
According to the article 6 of Law number 30 year 2002, there are 5 categories of
KPK’s duties, authorities and obligations, as follows:
1. coordinate with institutions authorized to combat acts of corruption
2. supervise institutions authorized to combat acts of corruption
3. conduct preliminary investigations, investigations and prosecutions against
acts of corruption
4. conduct corruption prevention activities, and
5. conduct monitoring of state governance
KPK is authorized to conduct pre-investigation, investigations, and prosecutions against
corruption cases that:
1. involve law enforcers, state officials, and other individuals connected tocorrupt acts perpetrated by law enforcer or state officials
2. have generated significant public concern; and/or
3. have lost the state at least IDR 1,000,000,000 (USD 100,000)
KPK has some unique features compared to other law enforcement agencies. KPK is
led by 5 Commissioners, 2 Advisors, and 735 personnel. The five-person commissioners- 149 -

serve as a collegial body, which introduces greater accountability. It is much harder toinfluence the decision of a five-person body than the decision of a single individual. The
collegial character of KPK leadership also has the advantage of being able to spread theworkload among five commissioners.

KPK is independent from the executive, legislative, judiciary and any other powers.
Financially, KPK is audited by the Indonesian Supreme Audit Board (BPK) and should
be responsible to the public. In doing the tasks, KPK has the authority to supervise andcoordinate with the Attorney General Office as well as the National Police in handlingcorruption cases.

As mentioned earlier, KPK has the authority to investigate. This authority is broad
because KPK can investigate any public official for corruption, including members ofparliament, judges and even the military. Although KPK can investigate members of themilitary, it cannot prosecute members of the military. KPK has to date already succeededin convicting several members of Parliament and officials in the Judiciary, as will beelaborated in the next session. KPK essentially has all the investigative powers of a law
enforcement agency. It can conduct wiretaps on suspects, examine their bank account andtax records, as well as freeze their assets, issue hold orders and make arrests.
III. THE WORK OF KPK
A. Prevention of Corruption
The Deputy of Prevention also conducts anti-corruption coordinative efforts,
including: (i) coordination with the Minister of Home Affairs to push for the realization- 150 -

of the National Single Identification Number program, (ii) coordination with the internalmonitoring units of all government institutions (iii) coordination with government
institutions and State Owned Enterprises in stock taking all state assets under theunauthorized control of officials and former officials (the results of this particular
coordinative effort being that several officials have returned assets voluntarily), (iv)
coordinating with the State Ministry of State Owned Enterprises to obtain information on
public officials who also act as Commissaries at State Owned Enterprises (with all theconflicts of interest that entails that sort of arrangement); (v) coordinating with State
Ministry of Apparatus and Bureaucracy Reform to trigger the civil service reform.

The KPK also continues to improve the transparency of how public officials conduct
their affairs by increasing the compliance of Wealth Reporting (LHKPN), as well as theeffectiveness with which such reports are examined and confirmed. Other than this, the
KPK’s continuing dedication to monitor gratuity (the giving of gifts to public officials
which sets a precedent to corruptive behaviour down the road, or given in the interest of
maintaining corruptive relations) further supports the KPK’s push for transparency in theinterest of prevention.
Wealth Report Compliance
Year
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011*

Number of Mandated
Reporters
102,229
116,669
84,813110,892
128,030
144,557
180,831

Number of Reporters
52,13765,44876,116
95,359104,329
118,340
146,803*as of Oct.

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Number of Gratuity Reports
2005
50

2006
326

2007
249

2008
266

2009
335

2010
393

2011*
1155

* as of Oct.

KPK realizes that corruption sometimes is triggered by bad systems. Regarding thismatter, KPK also performs its monitoring authority that is to evaluate the administrative
management systems of state and public institutions, to provide recommendations tothese institutions, and to monitor the implementation of the recommendations. The
systems/institutions that have been reviewed by KPK include: the land agency, importadministration system, state budgeting, taxation, state treasury, management of migrant
worker, court tax, immigration, penitentiary, and funding of political party.

The priority of which administration system to be reviewed is based on the amountof the budget under the administration system, the number prone to corruption systemweaknesses, and the impact on the national economy and public service. Working closelywith the relevant institutions, KPK is now monitoring the implementation of these
institutions’ action plans.

To support the efforts to eradicate corruption, some studies and surveys have been
done to make the efforts more effective and efficient. These have included: surveys on
public perception towards KPK, integrity surveys to assess the level of public services insome institutions and local governments, anti-corruption initiative assessment surveys,
studies on good governance in local governments and disseminating the implementation- 152 -

of its principle to other regions, studies on electronic public procurement, and studies on
good corporate governance in some state owned and private companies which are listed
on stock exchanges.

For longer-term purposes, being the creation of a new generation that rejects
corruption, KPK has programs on anti-corruption education. This includes: campaigns inmany forms in mass media, development of anti-corruption modules for school, anticorruption education programs, recruitment of anti-corruption cadres, seminars, talkshow programs, and development of anti-corruption curricula for schools.
A. International Cooperation
The aforementioned Integrity Survey was also conducted after comprehensive
cooperation and capacity building of the KPK’s knowledge management of Integrity with
South Korea’s Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC). By using
concepts of measuring and improving Integrity from the South Koreans, the KPK has
initiated intense dialogue in improving the Integrity scores of the lowest scoring public
institutions. Some other tools learned from ACRC include: anti-corruption initiatives
assessment and corruption impact assessment.

The KPK has also learned much from its cooperation and correspondence with many
fellow anti-corruption agencies in the South East Asian, East Asian and South Pacificregions, such as the Malaysian Badan Pencegah Rasuah (Malaysian Anti Corruption
Commission - MACC); the Brunei Biro Mencegah Rasuah (BMR); the Thai National
Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC); the Philippine Ombudsman; the Hong Kong

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Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC); the New South Wales Independent
Commission Against Corruption (ICAC); and the Singapore Corrupt Practices
Investigation Bureau (CPIB). Cooperation ranges from law enforcement activities in anticorruption, training activities, as well as dialogues in corruption prevention.

B. Repression of Corruption
1. Case Load
The KPK’s case load in law enforcement activities as of Dec. 15, 2009 are as follows:
Year
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011*
Total

Pre-Investigation
23
29
36
70
70
68
54
68
418

Investigation
2
19
27
24
46
37
40
32
227

Prosecution
2
17
23
19
37
34
32
36
200

Execution
0
4
14
23
23
37
34
30
165

*as of Oct.

KPK cases which have reached final decision are as follows:
Resolved
District Court
Provincial Court
Supreme Court
Total* as of Oct.

2004
0
0
0
0

2005
3
0
2
5

2006
5
4
8
17

2007
9
0
14
23

2008
9
0
14
23

2009
20
2
15
37

2010
21
2
11
34

2011
19
0
11
30

Total
86
8
75
169

Among the corruption cases handled by the KPK from 2004 – 2009, involving somehigh ranking officials as follows:•••

45 members of Parliament
8 Ministers/Head of Ministerial level
8 Province Governors- 154 -

•
•
•
•
•
•

1 Governor of central bank, 4 Deputy Governor
27 Mayors and Head of Regents/District
6 Commissioners of General Election; Judicial; Anti-monopoly Commission
3 Judges, 3 Prosecutors of the Attorney General’s Office
3 Ambassadors and 4 General Counsel, including Former Chief of National Police
Senior Prosecutor, KPK’s investigator, many high ranking goverment official
echelon I & II (Director General, Secretary General, Deputy, Director, etc.)
High ranking CEOs involved in public corruption•

2. Recovering Stolen Assets
One of the best indicators of the KPK’s success in performing its repressive law
enforcement activities is the return of stolen state assets. During its early days, the KPK
was criticized for not being able to recover assets exceeding the cost of running the KPK.
Recently, this figure has drastically been overturned. The figures are shown on the tables
below:
2005
(IDR)

2006
(IDR)

2007
(IDR)

2008
(IDR)

2009
(IDR)

2010
(IDR)

2011*
(IDR)

State Funds Lodged
6.959.166.167 12.990.522.190 48.454.936.028 411.800.133.417 142.993.950.300 189.371.372.650 134.581.573.850
to the Treasury* as of Oct.

Regarding the process of taking over an indictment or a prosecution process by the
KPK, it will be carried out by the KPK should some conditions prevail, for example: areport about an act of corruption has been ignored, the processing of the corruption casegoes on for too long/delayed without a valid reason, the handling process is itself miredby corrupt acts, or the case has been hampered by executive, legislative, or judicial
interference.
In addition to performing direct repressive law enforcement by processing cases forthe anti-corruption courts, the KPK also performs coordination and supervision- 155 -

operations involving law enforcement officers from the Police and the Attorney
General’s Office.
Coordination of law enforcement efforts is conducted by way of conducting
meetings with the Attorney General’s Office and the Police Headquarters. The results ofsuch coordinating meetings include: (i) establishing a pattern for cooperative
coordination and supervision in the area of investigations and prosecution in corruption
cases, (ii) establishing mechanisms for the taking over of corruption cases by involved
institutions, (iii) the establishment of coordination and supervision material that include
the synchronization of corruption cases data that had been reported or transferred to the
KPK, as well as establishing criteria for certain corruption cases that need to besupervised.
C. Synergy between Prevention and Repression
It has been learned from the previous anti-corruption agency that it is very important
to concurrently conduct the prevention and repression approach towards corruption.
Further, there should be a comprehensive approach of prevention and repression activities.
The activities below are some examples.

As an independent agency that is fully responsible for corruption prevention efforts,
the KPK is actively involved in triggering civil service reform at various pilot institutionsin Indonesia. The Ministry of Finance is one institution which has implemented
bureaucratic reform efforts. For certain service units under the Ministry of Finance suchas the Tanjung Priok Customs General Services Office, such salary improvements were- 156 -

substantial. Unfortunately, those salary improvements did not improve the performance
nor the integrity of the personnel. Bribery is a common transgression, even when reform
efforts were being conducted. The KPK, in cooperation with the Customs and Excise
Office’s Internal Compliance Division, performed raids at the Green Line (processing of
documents from credible companies) and the Red Line (processing documents fordangerous goods) at the Office, as well as on the vehicles used by officers working there.
The raid discovered evidence in the form of bribe money amounting to US$ 50,000 in thetimespan of several hours of operations. From the raids, it has been indicated that several
officials at the Customs and Excise Office may be processed further by the legal system.

KPK has processed a case involving an official from Bank Indonesia. In respect ofthat, the KPK also assisted Bank Indonesia by intensifying preventive efforts byanalysing Bank Indonesia internal rules that potentially create conflicts of interest.
Internal rules that are analysed by the KPK in cooperation with Bank Indonesia include
rules regarding legal protection for personnel and regarding work related travel.
IV. CHALLENGESIn recent years, corruptors’ resistance has taken place in different forms. The attacks
against anti-corruption activities were done through various methods and channels. For
example, the general courts have not been giving much support as many corruptors are
freed by their verdict. There are also some issues that have not been regulated regarding
the efforts to eradicate corruption. For example: private to private sector corruption, andthe draft Law of Criminal Procedure has not been passed. This law is important for thereason that at the moment KPK cannot have its own investigator and prosecutor. Its- 157 -

investigator must come from the Police and the Attorney General’s Office. In addition, in
the level of government decree, topics like witness protection, lawful interception, andwealth reporting have not been settled.

The newly passed law of the Anti-Corruption Court also poses new challenges to
KPK. The law requires that in some regions should be established Anti-Corruption
Courts, compared to current existing condition with only one Anti-Corruption Court in
Jakarta. This new condition would pose problems of technical coordination andsupervision because KPK does not have branch offices in those regions.

Some challenges come from the internal side as well. Firstly, the KPK’s humanresources are relatively small compared to the 220 million total population and vastgeographic conditions of Indonesia. Secondly, the current KPK office building is notreally providing enough operational space for all of its personnel. The proposed budget
for a new building has not been approved yet by the Parliament. Lastly, the KPK
currently still has to borrow the detention house from the police.

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