Nusa Dua

During the five-day conference, set to end Friday, Business delegates reaffirmed their commitment to the global campaign against corruption. They said they would establish principles aligned to the fundamental values enshrined in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).

Representatives from the International Chamber of Commerce, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry attended, as well as those from business watchdogs, including Transparency International and the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI).

They agreed the private sector would fight against corruption of any kind, including bribery and extortion.

"We firmly believe that fighting corruption is a society-wide, shared responsibility, and ... support the establishment or strengthening of public anticorruption infrastructure," the business coalition said in a statement issued after a special session of the conference.

Michael Kennedy, head of New York Law Firm, which specializes in private-public corruption cases, said companies worldwide were now in a position to "never tolerate" corruption practices within their operations.

"Fundamentally, the common voice is that corruption is bad for business," he told the forum, which was part of the second session of the conference of the States Parties to UNCAC hosted by the United Nations and Indonesia.

The business meeting served as a forum to discuss ways the private sector would contribute to the successful implementation of UNCAC.

Although the conference emphasized the state's role in combating graft, many said support from the private sector was a key to the successful implementation of the convention, because it covered corruption cases in both the public and private sectors.

Michael Pedersen of the PACI, which oversees 130 company constituents worldwide, including Shell, Newmont, Coca Cola and TNT, concurred with Kennedy.

He said a recent survey by the PACI revealed more companies had implemented internal measures to fight corruption.

"Some 90 percent of the companies we surveyed said they have applied internal regulations to fight corruption," he told The Jakarta Post in an interview Wednesday.

He said there was no other option but to include the private sector and civil society organizations to make the UNCAC effective in eradicating corruption.

Fritz Heimann of General Electric said most companies had agreed on the importance of fighting corruption within their operations and had applied internal regulations to prevent corruption from taking place.

Y.W. Junardy of the Indonesian Marketing Association said many companies had worked with the Corruption Eradication Commission to strengthen their fight against corruption.

But several problems, including different definitions of corruption, should be addressed quickly, several businesspeople agreed.

Facilitation for state officials, for instance, is part of graft, while others have claimed it should be excluded in the definition of corruption, Kennedy said.

Christian Poortman of the Transparency International said all parties had to work toward a unified anti-corruption standard to assure measures were effective.

Several business delegates cited the absence of whistle-blower protection provided by the companies, saying this was an urgent issue for them to address.

The forum also discussed the need to enhance cooperation between large companies, endowed with increasingly effective internal integrity mechanism, and small- and medium-sized enterprises. (JP-A.Khalik)