The recent threats of lengthy, rotating power blackouts in Jakarta have not been been realised fortunately, thanks apparently to self-imposed controls on power consumption by its residents. The power situation remains precarious however, and who knows what games will be played behind the scenes now that the nine month election campaign has kicked off. The energy sector has been badly mismanaged and it will not be fixed in the short term.
The recent crackdown on corruption in customs and immigration is to be applauded but apparently it's now very difficult to get anything processed. It's not exactly clear why. It could be that the incoming staff are still getting their heads around their new responsibilities. For instance, the minister overseeing customs moved the entire staff of 1,300 from the main Tanjung Priok office and relocated them elsewhere. She brought new staff in to replace them.
There's also been some high profile raids on the customs offices that have netted lots of brown envelopes containing lots of money. So right now it is almost impossible to bribe a customs or immigration official but at the same time it's almost impossible to get anything processed. A reasonable suspicion might be that a go-slow strategy has been adopted by employees but I could be wrong.
Like most Indonesians, these customs and immigration employees don't earn a reasonable salary and are strongly tempted to augment their meagre income through bribes. In fact I would imagine that if you didn't collect sufficient bribe money to pass on to your superiors then your chances of promotion would be very low.
Corruption is still deeply entrenched in this society but at least those guilty of the practice are a little more nervous these days. The Corruption Eradication Commission has certainly collected some high profile scalps recently but it may become a victim of its own successes. The politicians are getting increasingly nervous (I can't think why) and moves are afoot to draft some legislation that will blunt the effectiveness of the Commission.
The recent crackdown on corruption in customs and immigration is to be applauded but apparently it's now very difficult to get anything processed. It's not exactly clear why. It could be that the incoming staff are still getting their heads around their new responsibilities. For instance, the minister overseeing customs moved the entire staff of 1,300 from the main Tanjung Priok office and relocated them elsewhere. She brought new staff in to replace them.
There's also been some high profile raids on the customs offices that have netted lots of brown envelopes containing lots of money. So right now it is almost impossible to bribe a customs or immigration official but at the same time it's almost impossible to get anything processed. A reasonable suspicion might be that a go-slow strategy has been adopted by employees but I could be wrong.
Like most Indonesians, these customs and immigration employees don't earn a reasonable salary and are strongly tempted to augment their meagre income through bribes. In fact I would imagine that if you didn't collect sufficient bribe money to pass on to your superiors then your chances of promotion would be very low.
Corruption is still deeply entrenched in this society but at least those guilty of the practice are a little more nervous these days. The Corruption Eradication Commission has certainly collected some high profile scalps recently but it may become a victim of its own successes. The politicians are getting increasingly nervous (I can't think why) and moves are afoot to draft some legislation that will blunt the effectiveness of the Commission.
