Thursday, April 10, 2008

Future wedding invitation

It has become a norm here in Indonesia that when a member of a family gets married the family puts this notice (or any of its variations) on the invitation card: "With all due respect we prefer not to receive flowers or other parcels, thank you". Which actually means: "Please just give us money". Economically, this practice is welfare-improving. Because its the newly-weds who know exactly what they want, not the gift givers. To save them time for exchanging some unneeded stuff, money is good.

But for the family of a state official, there is a constraint. The rule says, any government official is not allowed to receive graft or gifts worth more than Rp 1 million. And even in their wedding parties, the mighty KPK (corruption eradication commission) presents to examine the gifts.

So, I imagine, if these practices (along with the rule and KPK's method of checking) prevails, family (started by state officials') will have another notice on the invitation card, saying:

"For those of you who kindly intended to give us money more than Rp 1 million, please make sure to split the envelope and use different names. Better yet, just transfer it, separately into the following accounts: yyy and zzz. For assistance please call our secretary Ms. Moneypenny at this number xxx".

6 comments:

  1. or send to our "wali amanat" account... :)

    lj

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  2. how about vouchers and store coupons? is that also applied? :D

    just in case i'm marrying government official in the future, i need to know this stuff...

    dHani

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  3. I second dHani's concern. This significantly reduces the interest not only to become a government officials, but also to marry children of government officials. The long-term effect can be a gap in the workforce, and disproportionate number of single adults. Not to mention many wedding-related companies that will go bankrupt. :D

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  4. One million limit? Could you use this to calculate a wealth index for an economic stratum (presumably, middle or high one?)?

    Irma Kurniawan

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  5. And plus note:

    We receive US Dollar only

    -lol-

    ReplyDelete