Rima has found some good newsLike beacons in the night, her
post about innovative caring folk in this country merely highlights the crass mediocrity of some (most? all?) of the political élite.
After writing about some high school girls who have found a way to dissolve polystyrene with orange peel, she ends her post with some wishful thinking.
I hope soon someone will come up with some other extract to dissolve and destroy corruption and corruptors.There's a very good
analysis of Indonesia's corruption in the latest e-newsletter from
Inside Indonesia. Ari Kuncoro, a lecturer in economics at the University of Indonesia, suggests that the regional decentralisation program launched in 2001 with the resultant diffusion of power and authority is the key factor in the growth of bribery here.
In Suharto’s Indonesia, corruption was centralised and predictable, somewhat like that in communist Russia or South Korea. Indonesia and India were about equally corrupt, but Indonesia’s economic performance was better.
Corruption in post-Suharto Indonesia is quite different. Centralised corruption - one-stop shopping - is ... gone, replaced by a more fragmented bribe collection system. Today many players, from central ministry and other government officials, through legislative members at the national and local levels, to local officials, soldiers, and police officers, are demanding bribes. Their failure to coordinate their bribe-taking behaviour will likely result in a higher total level of bribes.Of course, the way to stop corruption is for everyone to take a stand and refuse to pay beyond the official fees. That is most probably more wishful thinking, or would be if it weren't for
a trial which got underway yesterday in Germany.
Reinhard Siekaczek, 57, a former senior manager at Siemens admitted building up an elaborate system of slush funds and shell firms at the request of his superiors to help Europe's biggest technology group win overseas contracts through bribes.
On the opening day of Germany's biggest post-war corporate corruption trial, Siekaczek described how managers signed off "commissions" on yellow Post-It notes which could be easily removed in case of raids or investigations.
Siekaczek, is the first of up to 300 accused among Siemens' current and former staff to stand trial in a corruption scandal that the group itself admits involves at least €1.3bn (£1bn) in siphoned-off money.I await with interest to see a mention of
Siemens Indonesia.
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