Jokowi Witnesses Anti-Corruption Operation At Transport Ministry

JAKARTA, Oct 12 (Bernama) -- President Joko Widodo made a surprise visit to see for himself a special operation to weed out corrupt civil servants at the Ministry of Transport here Tuesday evening. The president, popularly known as Jokowi, entered the ministry's premises at 4.30 pm without any protocol and accompanied by Indonesia's national police chief Tito Karnavian. He wanted to see for himself the operation by a task force he set up recently to eradicate the practice of asking for bribes better known locally as 'pungli' among civil servants. Online media quoted Minister of Transport Budi Karya Sumadi as saying the task force raided the Public Service Division as well as Land and Sea Approval Department before detaining several officers to assist investigations. Police also seized cash amounting to tens of millions of rupiah (Indonesian currency) and documents for investigation. Jokowi later told reporters that the government had reminded employees at all levels of government to stop the collection of 'pungli' when serving the people. He said a special team would be conducting a 'Pungli Eradication Operation' (OPP) at all government departments to wipe out the corrupt practice among civil servants. "Stop it (Pungli). Just in an hour, the new OPP has yielded such a haul," he said. He directed Budi to dismiss all civil servants caught in 'pungli' cases and ordered police to take action to ensure the habit was not practised in any government department. --BERNAMA