Q+A: Indonesia's battle against corruption

Indonesia's corruption court on Wednesday jailed one of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's in-laws for graft, a decision that could help the President's re-election by showing his commitment to fight such crimes.

The case against former central bank official Aulia Pohan was seen as an important test of Indonesia's efforts to clamp down on corruption, especially where it involved the powerful or well-connected. Here are some questions and answers on Indonesia's efforts to tackle corruption:

HOW BAD IS CORRUPTION IN INDONESIA?

Getting better, but still pretty bad.

Transparency International (TI) gave Indonesia a Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) score of 2.6 last year (a score of 1 denotes most corrupt while 10 means graft-free), a slight improvement on its score of 2.0 a decade earlier.

TI ranked former president Suharto as the world's worst kleptocrat, estimating his assets at between $15-$35 billion during his 32 years in power. Suharto, pressured out of office amidst widespread unrest in 1998, always maintained he was innocent and efforts to convict him failed.

The real fight against graft only began once the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) came into force. It was set up under former president Megawati Sukarnoputri but started to show its teeth under Yudhoyono.

HOW DOES INDONESIA COMPARE WITH OTHERS IN ASIA?

TI's Global Corruption Barometer 2009 showed Indonesia ranks poorly in Asia and worldwide.

It got a score of 3.7 (where a score of 5 means extremely corrupt while 1 is not at all corrupt), which means it is considered more corrupt than India (3.5), Malaysia (3.4), Thailand (3.3), Hong Kong (3.2) and Singapore (2.2) but less corrupt than South Korea (3.9) and Japan (3.9).

The difference between TI's Corruption Perceptions Index and its Global Corruption Barometer is that the former surveys business executives while the latter surveys ordinary people.

WHAT DAMAGE HAS CORRUPTION DONE IN INDONESIA?

A 2005 survey of companies by the Asian Development Bank found corruption among the top four factors that deter foreign investment in Indonesia, after macro-economic stability and uncertainty over economic and regulatory policy.

Endemic graft creates uncertainty for investors, making it hard to predict the overall cost of doing business and rule of law because it often affects decisions made by key institutions such as the police and judiciary.

Numerous corruption cases have shown government ministries and departments frequently solicit bribes when awarding infrastructure or other contracts, rather than choosing the best contractor, potentially affecting project standards. 

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR?

Efforts to fight corruption in Indonesia have been patchy.

President Yudhoyono was elected in 2004 on promises to tackle graft and both the KPK and corruption court play important roles.

The KPK has investigated several business and political figures, handing over its cases to the corruption court for trial.

TI's Global Corruption Barometer found that nearly three-quarters of Indonesians surveyed considered the government's anti-corruption efforts to be effective, one of the highest scores for all the countries included in the report.

However, local anti-corruption campaigners say the KPK has failed to go after enough big fish and has mainly targeted mid-ranking officials.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN HURDLES IN FIGHTING CORRUPTION?

The main institutions responsible for tackling graft -- parliament, the judiciary, and the police -- are all regarded as corrupt, which makes them less effective in fighting graft.

That's one reason why the special corruption court was set up, but its future isn't assured.

Cultural factors also play a part. Police, judges, civil servants are poorly paid and therefore the temptation to solicit bribes is strong, while many ordinary Indonesians say they regard it as normal to pay "extra" to speed things up.