Yesterday, while still holding his post as the Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister (he was “rotated” to become the new Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister in the cabinet reshuffle which was announced today), Luhut said the government is considering not sending officials convicted of corruption to jail.
Luhut’s reasoning? Jail time does not have a deterrent effect on corrupt officials and there aren’t enough jail cells to contain all the corrupt officials in Indonesia.
“If they (corruptors) are convicted of defrauding the nation, we can punish them by getting them to return the money to the state, as well as additional penalties and have them fired from their jobs. If they go to jail, jails can be full as a result,” Luhut said in his office yesterday, as quoted by Okezone.
However, Luhut said the idea is still in its infancy and that it needs to be given a lot of thought before it becomes national policy.
But the fact that a senior minister publicly said something this ridiculous is unlikely to go down well with the public. Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Chief Laode M Syarif said not jailing corrupt officials would be a terrible idea.
“Indonesia would be weird and different [to the rest of the world] if it (not jailing corruptors) becomes national policy,” he said, as quoted by Liputan 6 yesterday.
