I love investigations.

I haven’t written for such a long time. AGES in fact. I’d put it down to not wanting to get my ass in trouble for potential rumours and/or threats of violence against my staff for being such dishonest little fuckers, and considering this a public site, I refrained from putting in too much information. Still, now I’ve decided to come back to it and put a bit of info in here. I’m past caring about what people think any more.

So, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start… Our Logistics team started uncovering some anomalies in prices for WatSan materials, and started asking questions, and now we’re in the middle of a full-blown investigation of all staff in Simeulue (including me). There's rumours of staff collusion with suppliers on prices, getting kickbacks, preferring particular suppliers for personal gain, and not delivering what materials in the quantities they say they're delivering... blah blah blah.

Staff R&R and Annual Leave were suspended until further notice, and ARC sent in a Senior Finance Person (SFP) from Melbourne to conduct interviews with all staff. The investigation process was extremely stressful and frustrating for everyone, particularly due to the length of time it took, the way in which it was done and the lack of information to us about what’s happening with the results. I wish they’d bloody hurry up! I have been fobbing off staff left, right and centre with “it will be here soon” and “I don’t know anything”. All I want to do is go on my R&R and get away from this bloody place!

As the SFP predicted on her departure, “this place is about to fall apart” – precisely what happened the next week, in spectacular fashion when my staff had a big argument and verbally abused each other. Hooray for WatSan!

I feel that this investigation has caused relatively ‘commonplace’ (so to speak – in Indonesia; corruption is ingrained in this place) activities, no matter how appropriate, to be blown totally out of proportion. It has made them seem so much worse than they actually are (I have no qualms about the seriousness of them, however), and chatting to people in other NGOs, this is not a case special to ARC.

ARC appears to place such huge importance on this process, and wants to treat it as a serious matter, yet the investigation has been done in a piecemeal fashion. It’s all been done for show and there’s little substance. It’s all well and good to do an investigation, but for goodness’ sake, do it properly.

The interview process was completely rushed, a number of people were not adequately interviewed (including me – I did not have enough time for my interview) or not interviewed at all. The 5 construction supervisors were all interviewed at once, allowing them time to potentially collaborate on their story. Our previous Logistics officer was neither interviewed nor involved in the process and our previous head of office was only chatted to ‘informally’.

I don’t even know there will be a process for staff to know the accusations against us, and receive the opportunity to argue against the allegations. Surely this is the right of all staff, particularly as the investigation has to date only revealed verbal allegations. Because there is no hard evidence, we cannot pin anything on anyone, even though the fraud policy states that we just need adequate verbal information to take action. I am extremely worried, given the nature of the staff and the situation that is Simeulue, that much of the ‘evidence’ in that report is potentially fabricated by some in order to bring others down, get themselves ahead, or get revenge for incidences that have occurred in the past. That’s how the staff are in this office. There’s a real ‘divide and conquer’ attitude. But all implicated staff should have the right to ‘a fair trial’.

Plus I have one staff member who, prior to the investigation, had applied for and won another position with another NGO. Yet due to this investigation, the position has been put on hold until the results of the investigation are known. I worry that if any allegations are made against this staff member which are not actually true, and they are totally innocent as they maintain, are we tarnishing their record forever by believing a story that someone has made up because they don’t like them? Are we preventing this person from being employed when they have every right to work for the NGO without suspicion for corruption? And does this person get to argue her case of innocence?

For my part, they were one of the people I suspected least, and from a manager’s perspective my signature is on every document they submitted for orders of materials. I had no problem with them at the time. However I do admit that for this person to maintain that they did not know anything was happening (and I'm sure it has, I'm just not sure to what extent) shows either total stupidity and ignorance, or what I think is actually true – they were implicated by simply knowing what was going on and turning a blind eye to it – something we could say for many, if not all, people in the office.

However I will never actually know this, because to date I have not been allowed to read the report. I don’t know if I’ll even get a chance to read it, because I was investigated as part of this too.

What our management must remember is that people like myself work with the staff here every day and we have both personal and professional relationships with them. It’s easy for someone in HR that is outside of the process to implement the recommendations because they personally do not have to deal with the consequences in Simeulue. They are isolated from the everyday stresses that this whole issue has caused and will continue to cause until the saga is over.

We must be extremely careful about the way we implement the report’s recommendations. Outside people must be very well briefed beforehand on each situation or possibly even not involved at all – hence my question about us reading the report and implementing the recommendations ourselves.

I also want to know if any other investigation has been undertaken; ie: is Simeulue the only perceived ‘corrupt’ office, or has this served as a prompt to formally review all our operations in Indonesia? We are ignorant if we think this is limited to Simeulue. Corruption is part of the every day in Indonesia – for example, by using a particular supplier you always get a freebie; a pack of cigarettes or an extra gallon of Aqua bottled water. It’s normal. ARC have to remember this. Sure it’s not how we should do things, and staff who have read the fraud policy know it, but old habits die hard.

What’s scary is I don’t know who’s taken it further and is actually taking big kickbacks from purchasing large quantities of items like quarry materials, timber, hardware etc. I really hope none of my staff are involved, but I become less and less adamant of it by the day. It’s hard not to be a cynic.

So the saga continues…