The results of this study indicate that the scope of the Anti-Money Laundering Law enforcement is more significant than it was previously considered. It is important to note that the results of these findings suggest that the issue of the corruption is still perceived by the public as a relatively new concept (since the reformation phase in Indonesia). Analytical framework and conclusions which were implied from this study could be directly applied to the reinforcement of the Anti-Corruption legal framework in the form of the Perception of the Corruption within Governmental Officials’ Compensation (CGOC). This research also found that the key determinant of the corruption practices, within the framework of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) was also the determinant of the corruption within the Governmental Officials’ Compensation (CGOC). In addition to empirical findings, the analytical framework of this research contributes to the implementation of the Indonesian Act (section 8, year 2010) by giving key definitions of the corruption and money laundering, directly applicable with respect to the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering in Indonesia.
The results of this study suggest that there is an impact of CGOC (results were threshold significant), both from the public perspective, and from the perspective of the Government Officials themselves, Athough the empirical analysis indicates that the results for the latter group were minor. One of the possible explanations for this minor impact could be a cultural interpretation of the corruption, specifically how the corruption is generally defined and perceived. The latter fact coincides with previously established research by the Transparency International, which was taken into account when creating the Corruption Perception Index.
Another feasible explanation is that Money Laundering is a mere extension of other prevalent crimes, such as kidnapping, gambling, terrorism, illicit drug use, which are ubiquitous in the contemporary business community and have a severe effect on the operations of the governmental sector. When considering this information, corruption becomes a natural extension of the fundamentally flawed practices of the business conduct, unfortunately popular in Indonesia.
In addition to earlier works on the subject, this research offers findings, which reveal that government officials have a more sensible perception of the corruption, compared with the private sector. The significance of the results indicates that public stakeholders (namely citizens themselves) support the activities of the corruption by the governmental officials. Examples of such support would include conducting acts of bribery or neglecting unfair conduct (no whistleblowing mechanism in the state-run sector). This negligent attitude from the public creates a thriving environment for the corruption, as not only that the reinforcement system is weak, but the public itself grants “a license to operate” for those governmental officials who wish the corruption to remain a casual practice of their employment. Due to lack of infrastructure necessary to facilitate reporting and monitoring of the corruption practices, the unfair business conduct remain a bitter reality in Indonesia.
Findings of this paper (namely the results of the public perception of the corruption practices) could be used as a strong tool in conducting litigations against governmental officials’ crimes related to the corruption. Furthermore, the analytical framework of this research could serve as an effective warning about the acts of the corruptions that apply to private sector as well. In addition, we should note that current Anti Money Laundering system in Indonesia, in its contemporary state, would become incompetetive in the near future with the international standards.
Despite the strong assertions of the above conclusions, it is important to consider cultural intricacies of conducting business in eastern counties, which drastically differ from similar practices in the western counter-parties. Therefore, financial metrics, such as indexes or other quantitative measures cannot fully capture the idiosyncratic reasons of the behavior of individuals and thus should not serve as the sole determinants of the fairness of the business conduct or the ease of doing business for that matter. Despite this fact, Indonesia’s rank on the Corruption Perception Index is continuously improving year by year implying significant efforts of this nation on moving towards improving its position.
Conclusive remarks for this paper would include specific suggestions from the perspective of Law and Finance. From the academic perspective, there should be a continuous supportive effort of Indonesian people. In other words, there is a strong necessity of for the creation of checks and balances mechanism that would aim on combating Money Laundering and the Corruption. From the governmental officials’ perspective, there is a strong necessity of addressing issues of corruption by introducing harsher punishments for wrongdoers and an improvement of the governmental image in the eyes of the public. As Chaikin and Sherman (2009) commented, “there are indeed important complementarities in these two efforts, they are probably not symmetrical”. Considering this thought, there should be series of alternative approaches towards the elimination of the corruption practices in Indonesia. Specifically, basic needs in the context of regional, cultural and economical applications must be clearly defined in order to gather the willingness and sustain the attitude of citizens in reducing the what may be their secondary needs, namely create a new perspective on opposing Corruption and Money Laundering. Proposed methodologies include detailed fairness and justice, such as introduction of the steady increase of the compensation for those employees, which are most likely to use alternative sources of wealth creation, as well as improve the transparency of governmental entities. Finally, the dialogue between the compensation committees and the concerned stakeholders should be stimulated and developed proactively with an aim of maintaining the positive development in Legal and Financial system of Indonesia.
Febrian Arham's Master Thesis ( P.38-42),
LLM, DSF, 2014
preliminary source :