At Least It's a Start...Indonesia Trying to Deal With the Graft Problem...

Indonesia, where, government agencies sometimes have to bribe other government agencies to get them to do their jobs, comes another attempt to clean up its act. I had a friend that used to work for the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, that was formed by the government during the banking crisis there in the late 1990's. They had a slush fund to pay off legislators in order to get the votes in the Parliament to pass legislation necessary to complete their government mandated restructuring.

An aggressive graft probe into the Indonesian election commission could succeed in doing what no anti-corruption campaign has done before - make people fear the consequences before they start greasing palms.

Graft is an insidious tax on an economy and lowers the country's growth potential. It will take a long time to clean this up in Indonesia since corruption is just part of the government and business landscape there. But at least, President Yudhoyono is making a step in the right direction.