REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said it welcomes a plan to sign a Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) agreement between the Indonesian and Swiss governments as said by President Joko Widodo. Deputy Chairman of KPK Laode M Syarif said the agreement is very urgent.

"Actually, it does not come all of a sudden. Now there is transparency in banking and taxation information regulated internationally," Laode said here on Thursday.

With the MLA, illegally earned money in Indonesia stashed away in Switzerland, could be recovered, Laode said.

"If the money came from Indonesia and we could prove that it links to crimes, it could be easily recovered," he said.

He said the plan to sign the MLA agreement deserves appreciation. MLA is a legal platform to go after bribe money and laundering money deposited abroad.

"In the past, a lot of money was kept there as a tax haven, but Switzerland is not a place to stash away money earned illegally like Virgin Island. Even now we have no extradition agreement with Singapore," he said.

On Tuesday, President Joko Widodo wrote in his account about the plan to sign a MLA agreement with the Swiss government.

"Through lengthy talks we have come to a bright point and now it is in the final phase toward signing a Mutual Legal Assistance agreement between the governments of Indonesia and Switzerland," the president said in his account.

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