Agreement among ASEAN countries to achieve economic integration through the ASEAN Economic Community cannot yet materialise due the unresolved issue of Single Identity Number (SIN) in addition to conflict and political interests among member countries. This was said by Head of Economics Laboratory of Faculty of Economics and Business UGM, Dr. Rimawan Pradiptyo, in a general lecture during the International Summer University course, held in Djarum Hall of the Faculty on Monday (23/7).

The implementation of Single Identity Number, according to Rimawan, is running well in Singapore only while others have yet to follow suit. “Not all of 164 million of Indonesian people that are entitled to have ID card already have the e-ID card. There are even people with five IDs,” he said.

Use of electronic ID card in Indonesia so far is for guarantee purposes only as requested by hotels, online transportation services, and other administrative matters. “Electronic ID card in Indonesia cannot yet be used for transactional information such as tax payment and other transactions,” he said.

Apart from single identity issue, corruption, illegal drug trade, human trafficking, and human right abuse, and tax evasion are yet other homeworks for the government. Several countries have indeed the commitment to eradicating those problems, but not all member countries already have cooperation in resolving them. For instance, understanding and treatment on corruption between members are varied. “Some countries don’t want to sign the agreement for extraditing the corrupters,” he added.

On corruption perception index in the past ten years, Singapore still ranks the highest among ASEAN that has low cases of corruption. On the other hand, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines rank not much differently.

According to Rismawan, the low level of corruptive behaviour will create a good investment climate and vice versa. Hence, cooperation for information exchange and common commitment between member countries are required to eliminate corruption and other crimes from ASEAN.

Source: Gusti/UGM