The BPK Targets Institutions’ Compliances Reach up to 75%
YOGYAKARTA - The Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (BPK) targets compliances of the state institutions managing state finance derived from the people's tax to increase up to 75% by 2020 at the very least.
This far, the compliances of state institutions consisting of central government, regional governments and state-owned enterprises in 2015 reached 64%. A year earlier, the compliance level was even lower, which was only 57%.
“In developed countries, it can reach 80% to 85%. It’s true that the obstacle for the developing country like us is the quality of financial statements,” the Spokesperson of the BPK, Yudi Ramdhan, said in the BPK’s Representative Office in Yogyakarta Province last weekend.
Nevertheless, Yudi said that Indonesia is better that its neighboring countries including Malaysia and Indo-China countries. They have not had any good standard to draw financial statements nor qualified human resources. “So, we are better. Our systems are now relatively modern,” he added.
Yudi evaluated that the compliance level is important because it reflects institutions’ quality in state finance accountability. The quality of state budget expenses is crucial as the tax collected should be mostly for the people’s welfare.
He also revealed that there are 10% of all recommendations of BPK’s audit findings have not been followed up by related institutions. Quantitatively, there are 21,388 recommendations worth Rp 4.15 trillion from 2010 to 2014 that have not been followed up.
“Indeed, there should be an active interaction between the BPK and Inspectorate Generals to overcome this backlog,” he said.
In this regard, the Vice Chairman of the BPK, Sapto Amal Damandari, said that the BPK prioritizes persuasive approaches more than legal approaches in solving tens of thousands of BPK’s recommendations have not been followed up.
The mentioned legal approaches is the article 26 of the Law 15 Year 2006 regarding the BPK. Based on the law, it is stated that those who have not followed up recommendations stated in the audit reports will be charged a criminal offense with the imprisonment for one and a half years maximum and/or a maximum of Rp 500 million fine. “ In the BPK, we have already agreed to apply it further in the future, however, slowly,” he finalized.
The BPK plans to implement the Follow Up Monitoring Information System (SIPTL) starting next year. It is expected that the system can suppress noncompliances to BPK’s recommendations.
According to Sapto, BPK’s recommendations should be followed up by the entities. However, he admitted that it has not been implemented optimally as there are many recommendations that were not followed up. “Responding to this fact, the BPK is now developing an information system of the recommendations’ follow up monitoring. It is now being tested,” he said.
To date, he said, the follow up data are manually submitted to the BPK. In the near future, the manual submission will be replaced by the electronic data by using the SIPTL. With this system, processes and statuses of the follow ups submitted by the entities can be accessed in a real time.
Koran Sindo (Monday, September 26, 2016, page 20)