ILLEGAL COLLECTIONS HARD TO ERADICATE

Practice  of illegal collections seemed to be incurable habit. Business people were pessimistic that the corrupted culture could as ever be easily eradicated. One of the most notorious corruption practices were happening at the Tanjung Priok Harbor Jakarta. Even Police Chief Timur Pradopo admitted he was extremely upset by so many blackmailing committed by traffic policemen around the Tanjung Priok harbor. The Police Chief knew this case of bribery from a survey which disclosed that 46% of illegal collections were done by policemen.

               

Chairman of the Association of Indonesia Businesspeople [APINDO] Sofyan Wanandi stated on Friday [8/3], illegal collections had been going on since a long time ago and was now being at large committed by individuals of the Tax and Customs Dept causing anxiety among businesspeople. Now bribery and blackmailing practices were getting more terribly voracious. According to Sofyan everybody knew black mailings were committed by the high ruling authorities at the harbor, not just Tax and Customs officials.

               

Prevailing bribery seemed to be deep-rooted in Indonesia way of life which seemed to be bullet proof in spite of Government’s effort to eliminate crime. Sofyan rated that bribery practices was like cancer that gnawed business people’s activities, but they had to come to terms with the corrupted authorities just to keep business running. “ That is the reason why bribery was hard to eradicate” Sofyan remarked.

               

Illegal collection was just like vicious cancer. Being blackmailed, like it or not businesspeople had to pay the official if they wanted to clear their goods in harbor. Business blackmailing was happening in all levels of business since the past to the present time from street hawkers trying to sell goods to high level businesspeople trying to import or export products in harbors. Nearly all harbors were places for blackmailing and bribery by felonious officials especially big harbors like Tanjung Priok.

               

He saw that illegal collection at Tanjung Priok harbor was visible even with naked eye, the kind of illegal collection of “small” category was commonplace. An officer said that illegal collection on passing vehicles at Tanjung Priok harbor was something routine done by his colleagues as part of security management at the seaport. The standard rate of collection was for one container truck the driver must pay Rp2,000.- to the security officer. This was not to mention the driver must pay expenses of document handling in each post. Imagine if so many collector must be paid, how many rupiah must be prepared for paying them?

               

Meanwhile Vice Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Trading Industry and Logistic Natsir Mansur rated that illegal collections was a hindrance in business. Still practices of illegal collection was still nothing compared to legal uncertainly and complex bureaucracy. He said that illegal collection was part of business dynamism but it was nothing compared to the adversity of complicated bureaucracy.

               

He remarked further that loss incurred from illegal collection did not only incurred from illegal collection did not only incur material loss, while corruption in bureauceacy and permit application incur also loss of time. Besides the loss from street collectors along the northern coast highway was countable, but according to Mansyur loss in bureaucracy was unpredictable. “The most troublesome is the corruption in the Government’s bureaucracy “ Mansyur said. (SS)

Business News - March 13,2013