Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Chairman Abraham Samad said on Monday that KPK is now weighing the form of punishments for corrupters so as to reduce the social cost and generate deterrent effect among the public.

Speaking in his remarks to open international conference for Anti-corruption agencies here, Abraham said that punishment for corrupters that fits with their misdeeds in embezzling the money originally belongs to the state is very crucial to reduce the social cost from the corruption case.

"The social impact from corruption case is very significant. If we fail to address this issue, it may lead to moral degradation among the public. The punishment for corrupters must clear, how long corrupters must serve in jail, and how much must corrupters be fined by pays back their ill-gotten money they illegally took from the state. It is expected that the punishment will incite deterrent effect to the corrupters and to those intending to commit corruption," Abraham said.

He said that corruption is categorized as an extraordinary crime that ruins most aspects in the country that include economy, social, moral and credibility of governments.

He said that efforts to address corruption problem is now progressing in Indonesia with related institutions have pledged their supports to deal with the issue.

Citing to the results of Corruption Perception Index (CPI), a survey carried out by international corruption watchdog, Transparency International (TI), Abraham said that Indonesia was among countries ranked at high corruption rate as it earned low index score.

Indonesia was ranked 100 of 183 countries in 2011, showing that corruption practice was still significant in the country. In the same survey carried out by the TI, the largest economy in Southeast Asia was ranked 110 from 178 countries and 111 from 180 countries in 2010 and 2009 respectively.

He said that Indonesia had ratified the 2003 United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) on April 10, 2006. The ratification on UNCAC was legalized by the country's Law no. 7/ 2006. The KPK itself was established in Dec. 2002 when the UNCAC was yet to be drafted.

Speaking in the same occasion, Indonesian Parliament Speaker Marzuki Alie said that the parliament is strongly supports the efforts to eradicate corruption, adding that the parliament has issued law products to address corruption issue.

Among the law products were the law to ratify UNCAC and the anti-money laundering law no. 8/2010, he said. "An anti-corruption cannot work alone. It has to be helped in carrying out its noble tasks. Executive and Legislative institutions must provide security and politics support to endorse, support and assure the jobs carried out by the anti-graft agency be done effectively," he said. Endi

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