Thursday, September 3, 2009

Bank Century, Who's Fault?

For Bank Century's failure, who's the one that needs to be blamed?

Is it Bank of Indonesia? LPS? KSSK? Government?

It's Robert Tantular's fault, of course. He robbed his own bank and took people's money abroad. But, if we talk about the financial system, we need to find who has the authority to avoid that fraud from happening. Someone who has the control. Jusuf Kalla has his argument. He said BI failed to properly supervise Bank Century. To defend that, BI has his own version. BI argued a fraud that has been done by manager and owner is something they can't detect. They has a limitation in their monitoring procedure.

And, I have my own perspective. It's always unfair to blame someone. Punishment, and reward, are asymmetric. They can only be given after the event, not before the event. For example, if Bank Century fail because of lack of supervision, we can blame BI for their ignorance (if it's true). But, consider this, BI is so good so that they can prevent all banks from failure. Will they get the reward? I'm afraid not.

It also happens when we appreciate Densus 88 for their move killing the bastards, but never do the same thing for intelligence part who work at day and night prevent anything bad happening (so that bastards never do their crime).

Prevention is not something that can be appreciated. It happens before, not after.

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