Luxury handbags fuelling corruption in Indonesia? Yes says Indonesian Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin.
IBTimes
Don't blame it on the men. It is the fault of the women, says Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, the Indonesian Minister for Religious Affairs. He claims that the Indonesia is struggling against corruption, he says that it was greedy wives who were fueling the corruption.
He claims that men were just trying to please their wives. According to AFP, Indonesia has struggled against graft for years, with the country's vast bureaucracy crippled by corruption and leading public figures.
It said the wives of the elite in Indonesia are well-known for their love of expensive designer clothes and handbags. "Corruption is often motivated by many things," the minister said. He claimed that the "extraordinary demands" from family members pushed people to behave unusually, local newspaper Kompas reported.
"My message is not to demand too many material things that are out of the ordinary, that would be an outstanding contribution by women," he said. Lukman's predecessor, Suryadharma Ali was locked up for six years for corruption earlier this year.
One of the charges he faced was that he helped his relatives skip the long waiting list to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the main five pillars of Islam. No greedy women were specifically identified as the source of his 'corruption'.
According to AFP, Indonesia ranked 88th out of 168 countries and territories in NGO Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index last year. The number one ranking is the least corrupt.
Needless to say, his comments did not go down well with some women. "Don't just blame wives, that is really too much," housewife Viona Syavita said. She said it was unfair to just blame the women.