Indonesia still considered corrupt despite graft war

JAKARTA, Nov 6 (Reuters) Corruption is still seen as endemic in Indonesia despite a high profile war against graft, a new survey shows.

The country ranks among the world's most corrupt nations despite President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's pledge to eradicate graft, Transparency International (TI) said today.

The survey of perceived corruption in 163 nations puts Indonesia at 130th place, alongside countries such as Azerbaijan and Zimbabwe.

The lower down the list, the more corrupt the country is perceived as being.

Economists and foreign executives often cite widespread corruption as a leading factor hurting Indonesia's attempt to attract much-needed investment as it struggles to resume the high growth rates seen before the late 1990s Asian monetary crisis.

Indonesia's position on the Berlin-based TI scale of zero to 10, with zero most corrupt and 10 the least, improved slightly to 2.4 in the 2006 survey from 2.2. last year.

However, TI says countries with indices below 3 in its annual corruption perception index are considered ''highly corrupt''.

Finland, Iceland and New Zealand are considered the least corrupt countries with a ranking of 9.6, whil Haiti is the worst with 1.8.

''The president's promise to lead the corruption fighting movement himself has not been reflected in the national action plan in eradicating corruption,'' Rizal Malik, chief of Transparency International's Indonesia branch, said in a statement.

Yudhoyono, who took office two years ago, launched initiatives to fight corruption, and has energised an anti-graft commission and has stepped up prosecution of top government officials and business executives.

Dozens of elected officials and other high ranking civil servants are either in jail or on trial over graft charges and state prosecutors have begun to air pictures of graft fugitives on television.

But critics say the apparent change in mood has not convinced the public that endemic corruption is in decline.

Experts say many public services at all levels still require greased palms to get action underway, and low official salaries paid to civil servants, including police and judges, encourage the situation.

TI's Indonesia branch also said in a statement that educated professionals working in the business sector are guilty of ''closing their eyes to the existence of corrupt practices in their workplace''.

REUTERS SP PM1701