A police officer pulls over a motorist and asks him to show his driver's license and his vehicle's documents. Upon receiving the documents, the cop fucks off from the scene.The motorist then stops his vehicle and follows the officer.
A brief conversation ensues, with the police insisting the motorist has violated the traffic regulation and has to be booked.
Please note, the said offence is mostly perceived, never actually happened and you were just the next guy in line for the special treatment.The license and vehicle documents are handed over for review. Another conversation follows, with the motorist taking out his wallet. Shortly afterward, the two shake hands and the motorist gets back his license and vehicle documents. This scenario plays itself over and over again every day in Jakarta.
Virtually all motorists can say they have had to pay some kind of kickback after violating a traffic rule -- they pay the money to avoid the promised red-tape at the nearest precinct. The bribe is sometimes as low as Rp 5,000 (55 U.S. cents), but if you are a foreigner driving the car or the cop spots that your driver has a foreigner as a passenger the figure increases greatly.
My driver now routinely puts Rp. 20,000 in the registration papers to save hime the hassle of pulling out his wallet, theory being that if the cop spots a wad of dosh, the “fine” will be higher. (Smart thinking agent 99)
The way it works is simple; Pay me small money now or I keep your license and vehicle documents, you have to visit the cop shop and perhaps pay a larger fine, to say nothing of having to spend a whole day trying to retrieve said license.
At the heart of the problem is that low-ranking officers in Indonesia get a monthly basic salary of Rp 793,500 (US$88), while those in the highest bracket get Rp 2,512,800 per month. (US$), hence the need for the “lunch money”
The way it works is simple; Pay me small money now or I keep your license and vehicle documents, you have to visit the cop shop and perhaps pay a larger fine, to say nothing of having to spend a whole day trying to retrieve said license.
At the heart of the problem is that low-ranking officers in Indonesia get a monthly basic salary of Rp 793,500 (US$88), while those in the highest bracket get Rp 2,512,800 per month. (US$), hence the need for the “lunch money”
Ironically some Indonesians say that a functioning reward and punishment system would not address the issue of police corruption because they themselves work in a similar fashion.
If you want a document hustled through officialdom quicker, pay a bribe, want a new telephone line installed, pay a bribe, want your electricity supply repaired after the junction box has blown up after the last dodgy repair, pay a bribe. .
From top to bottom, facilitation fee’s are the nations life blood, after all if it’s good enough for the elected government it must be good for the masses.
Better stop now, I have to bribe the house girl to do the dishes…..
Nice tip, Gaf! And glad to see you're back! I've only been stopped once by the traffic cop in the past 17 years (since I had my first driving license)! But a couple of weeks ago, I got stopped by a traffic cop at Jl. Sisingamangaraja because I only had 2 people in the car in the 3 in 1 zone! Damn! How stupid me! There he was, kept on telling me that he would write me a ticket but he never took out his ticket' book! Damn... there goes my Rp.50.000,-!
ReplyDeleteLast year me and my friends were frequent guests at a night club in Ancol. One of my friends got pulled over in a taxi by a traffic police and had to pay 100 000 IDR. Twice in one week.
ReplyDeleteAs he told the story he mentioned how the cost of the 'fine' was set the second the officer got a glimse of his wallet.
Shortly after this incident I found myself in a taxi on my way from that same establishment in Ancol. As I got into the taxi I remembered my friend's story and stuck a 20 000 IDR bank note in my shirt pocket.
A few minutes later, close to the Kota train station, I get pulled over by a traffic police. He didn't bother with talking to the driver. Instead he focus directly on me and addressed me using 100% of his English vocabulary.
"Passport?"
At this point I toke the bank note in my shirt pocket, handed it over to him and told him: "Passport? No problem. This is my passport."
For half a second the guy gives me a sceptical look, and I suddenly realise that I might have found a honest cop. Maybe I'm in trouble now for assuming that all cops here are corrupt.
But that thought disappeared as the cop started to smile, slipped the bank note in his pocket, and sent me on my way with a short "Bagus!".
Whn I told this story in the office the day after one of the female co-workers got upset. "They always charge me 100 000 IDR!", she told me.