Have you ever dealt with public services administration? Making ID cards or driver's license for example? If you're often dealing with it, you are probably already accustomed to the term of "Uang Rokok” (cigarette money), or "Amplop Titipan” (deposit envelope), "baksheesh" and the others. Especially, if the things are not only dealing with documents but also projects, then all those terms will come out. Money cigarettes, deposit envelope, and baksheesh are just a few terms that are made seem more polite than the word "bribe". In public administration, "giving money" has been common to make the process faster than it should be. Even though the officials have been paid by the government, it is known that people used to prepare some extra money to make it easier.
Bribery is not a culture that emerges recently in Indonesia. A study mentioned that bribery in Indonesia has occurred since the Dutch government ruled in Indonesia. When Indonesia was not yet independent, many small kingdoms gave some property, which was called a tribute, to get protection from the Dutch government.Thus, the provision of such property was intended to get reward of protection from the Dutch government. However, the eradication of bribery was also already started since the Dutch govt. ruled. There were laws made by the Dutch government, which stated bribe was a criminal action. Unfortunately, the culture of bribery is now rooted to the public. It is no longer used to apply in the royal hierarchy, but is also applied to the nowadays people. Now, people know, understand, and get used to it. However, culture of bribery is encouraged by many factors, and eventually leads to bad government’s image in the society. The first cause is the low salaries of official public services. Many officials think that the salary is not appropriate, if it is compared to the job. The official should serve people in different kinds of background. And it was not as easy as people thought. They should be more patient to get the people satisfaction. Facing a person is not always easy, needs patience and dedication, while the salary is not satisfying.Bribe, then, become a tempting chance for them to get extra money. The second factor is the way of the official think about their job. As a public servant, some of the officials think that it was not a job to be proud of. They think that the job is so simple and not so important. Sometime, some people are forced to take the job rather than jobless. Then, sometime the officials work offhanded. It is then related to how one reacts through the bribery offer. People who proud with their job may not take the offer. On the contrary, people who are not proud of the job may take it as a common thing.
The third factor is the low discipline at the office. Even though bribe is forbidden thing, this kind of thing just happens every day. The employees of government administration sometimes bother the rule. One case, one person came to the office to make an ID card. The official stated that it only took 3 days to make it. In fact, after 7 days it had been finished for many reasons. Until the person gave cigarette money to the employees, he immediately got the ID card, from the official drawer, which actually had been finished before. However, there was no real punishments applied to the actors, for some of the case the head were also got involved. This made bribery grow so fast.
The next factor is the system of administration itself. Some people think that the system is not so good. It seems not in systematic order, and tends to ramble. For example, just to make an ID cards need only three days, tops. However, the preparations for making ID cards are quite tricky. One should ask a letter that informed the location of his resident from the head of neighborhood (RT), then the letter should be assigned by the head of Rukun Warga (RW), and then should be submitted to the district. All those steps look easy. In reality, the problems are on those steps. Sometimes it is difficult to meet the head of the neighborhood, or the head of RW, or the documents are not complete, or so on. Having imagined this situation makes some people taking the easy way. As a result, this is one of the ways the bribe growing. Some people put on some money to skip those steps, and go straight for the result. The last factor is believed caused by instant culture. Nowadays life seems simpler than before. Everything is served fast, for example fast food, fast call, fast shopping and others. Indonesian is getting used to with simplicity. Unfortunately, some government system, especially public services, has not been made simpler yet. The people have been used to with something instant, while the government has not made an appropriate system that fits with today society. This gap makes bribery common. People found that there was an easy way using money. People do not want to waste their time and energy for they found an easy way using money. As a result, bribery becomes common to people. We see that many factors encourage bribery in Indonesia, especially in government administration. People and the environment itself are believed growing bribery among the society. Governance Assessment Survey (2006) conducted in 12 provinces and 20 districts showed that 41.6 percent respondents said that the corrupt bureaucracy is the main causative factor business failures in the region. But when respondents were asked their opinions about giving extra money to the public bureaucrats, almost half (47 percent) said that it was "something common and normal". The survey has proved that bribery has rooted to the society. However, this giving-extra-money behavior has attacked the government's reliability. As the result of baksheesh practicing among the government, one of the survey said that it affects to business success to the region. The survey did not say about the failure of business. However in reality, in most case, the competence companies were failed to be chosen as government partner on a tender project. On the other hand, incompetence company was chosen to be partner for they did the bribery. Beside that, the other effect and the most fatal effect is society's distrust to the government works. One research that was held by Kompas, a national newspaper, was about the satisfaction of society to government officials, the desire of society moving to another city, and positive verbal communication about Jakarta city. The result of the research that took place in Jakarta showed that society's trust to the government tended to decline. One of the main causes was the quality of public services sector. Many people complained that it is quite difficult to create a document in a short time. One case, someone should prepare some extra money, in addition of the official fee, to make an ID card at the districts. One person said that people were not forced to give extra money. However, he believed that giving extra money or not will affect to the official’s treatment. In most of the cases, one that giving extra money might get priority rather than the one who didn't give extra money. However, the person said that it was not going too far. It still can be tolerated, he said. So, it is true that bribery has became part of Indonesian culture for many decades, especially in public services. Many factors, starts from official's wealth, work ethic of the official, system of public services itself, and the influence of other culture, has growth bribery among Indonesian people. However, many efforts from the government itself are built to eradicate bribery practice, especially on the body itself. Besides, there are people, not in a small number, who concern about bribery practice in Indonesia. They are fighting to clean the society from the practice. For example, they are who in Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) organization. Well, it is not necessary for us to reach the organization and become the member as an intention to stop bribery. A small step could help them to fight against bribery. One action can be a great movement to eradicate bribery. So, let us start to stop giving extra money, and invite other people do the same. Then, how about you?
