Village head, should be the person in charge of carrying out government affairs, development, and community in the village he leads. This means that the authority of the village head is very large in his village, including in the use of village budgets. However, since the government has made a policy to allocate APBN funds for village development, the funds are just like the new coffers for the village head to enrich themselves.
Since the disbursement of village funds to the whole village, the KPK has arrested several village heads who were involved in corruption cases. The village chief’s arrest was related to misuse of village funds where some modes were the reduction of village funding allocations, the cutting of BLT, the reduction of Raskin’s quota and several other modes.
Basically, every country must face the problem of corruption. In Indonesia, corruption grew from the central government to the degree of local government. Like the octopus, corruption grew stronger and gripped the joints of this country. Any efforts that have been made to contain and eradicate the corruption movement have not shown any signs of diminished corrupt perpetrators.
The change of the political system from the centralized (New Order) to the decentralization (Reform Era) turned out to also have a negative impact. Indeed, corruption at the village level may be somewhat “petty”, but that does not mean that corruption is permissible. The consequences of such corruption are very complex, starting from hindering the development sector that impacts the wheels of the village economy.
Within the scope of the use of village funds, one effort that has been made to prevent misuse of village funds is the control of village counselors, but in some cases it is the village counselor himself who participated in the misuse of the budget. Therefore, the community should actively participate in the village fund utilization plan.
)* The author is CIDISS Contributor