Silvia Ng, Jakarta – Indonesia's 2022 corruption perception index (IPK) has plummeted by four points to a score of 34. Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD claims he was stricken by news of the low score.

"I was hit quite hard yesterday or two days ago with the release of the corruption perception index that was announced by TII [Transparency International Indonesia]", said Mahfud during a presentation at the National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas) offices in Central Jakarta on Wednesday February 1.

"The TII announced that our [corruption] perception index, which usually goes up by one [point] every year, gradually rising until it reached 39 a while back, then dropping to 38, then suddenly yesterday it dropped to 34", he said.

Mahfud said that the IPK in 2022 was recorded as the worse since reformasi – the political reform process that began in 1998. "This corruption perception index is the worst since reformasi", said Mahfud.

Mahfud claimed that he had already guessed that this would be the case because of the many debates about sting operations (OTT) conducted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

He said that the index does not represent cases of corruption in Indonesia, but rather that the public's perception of them has worsened.

"Oh, improving the index, that's a perception right, we arrange those measures so it goes up, if there's more corruption it goes down, right, that's the perception, right", explained Mahfud.

"But indeed we already suspected, right, that if there were a great many OTT, corruption happening everywhere, it goes up, right, that's what's called public anger, so their perception is also bad", he added. (zap/zap)

[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Indeks Persepsi Korupsi RI Anjlok, Mahfud Md Mengaku Terpukul".]

Source: https://news.detik.com/berita/d-6545352/indeks-persepsi-korupsi-ri-anjlok-mahfud-md-mengaku-terpukul