PRESIDENT CALLS FOR GLOBAL COMMITMENT TO ERADICATE CORRUPTION

Jakarta, June 12 (ANTARA) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called for a global commitment to eradicating corruption saying that no country in the world should be a place where corrupters can stash away state assets.
Yudhoyono made the call in his address at a function to launch an UNDP Asia-Pacific 2008 Human Development Report titled "Efforts to Fight Corruption, Changing Life" at the State Palace here on Thursday.
The president said if just one particular country protected corrupters, corruption eradication efforts would be hampered.
Therefore, he said, the Indonesian government welcomed all technical cooperation to combat corruption through extradition agreements and the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) scheme.
Yudhoyono said the Indonesian government also welcomed the UNDP report on corruption eradication efforts.
He promised the Indonesian government would continue to work hard to raise the success rate of its corruption eradication efforts.
"The Indonesian government is dead serious about eradicating corruption because corruption makes economically-weak people suffer and destroys justice," the president said.
Meanwhile, the UNDP report offers a glimpse into the innovative ways in which communities and governments in a number of countries, including Indonesia, were strenuously fighting corruption.
The report from the UNDP also said, in Asia-Pacific countries politicians in government were considered to be the most corrupt group of people, followed by police and legal institutions.
It said that nearly one in every five people in the Asia-Pacific region had admitted to having ever given a bribe to police over the past few years.