360 Sent to Jail for Corruption: VP says

London (Antara) - Vice President Boediono said 360 people had been jailed for corruption since 2002, including lawmakers, police officers, government officials, bankers, provincial governors, judges, city mayors and businessmen. "Many more cases, meanwhile, are now still being investigated," he said during a lecture on "Transforming Indonesia: The Challenges of Good Governance and Economic Development" at Oxford University here on Wednesday. He noted that one program to improve governance was eradicating corruption, and the movement has now moved to the top of the country's national agenda. Surveys have consistently shown that corruption has been seen by the public as their number one enemy. Further, Boediono said that an anti-corruption mentality has begun to spread throughout public institutions. Although corruption eradication efforts have been intensified, much has still to be done, he said. In the Corruption Perception Index 2012, Indonesia was ranked 118th out of 176 countries which were worse than the year before (ranked 100th), although the index had actually improved to 3.0-3.2 in a 1-10 scale. The same trend was also found in the Global Competitiveness Index 2012-2013 that had shown improvement in ethics and corruption categories in which Indonesia's ranking improved from 135 in 2010 to 87 this year. The implementation of regional autonomy, he said, has also opened new opportunities for corruption, as more power and resources are given to regions. The large number of regional leaders who have been put in jail for corruption has only strengthened the conviction that corruption eradication would remain the country's priority. (*)