High demand for public accountants, coupled with their very scant numbers, is raising concerns about the appearance of fake auditors ahead of the 2009 elections.

Tarko Sunaryo, secretary-general of the Institute of Indonesian Public Accountants (IAPI), said at a press conference on Tuesday that the number of available public accountants in the country would be unable to handle the number of financial reports of election campaigns that required auditing.

He said Indonesia only had 800 registered public accountants, while the number of election funds reports to be audited — as regulated in the 2008 law on legislative elections — was estimated to reach 20,000, comprising reports from all 44 political parties' regency/municipal, provincial and central offices.

"Worse, only 70, or less than 10 percent of the 800 public accountants, have stated their readiness to audit election funds reports. They say they can only handle 800 reports," Tarko said.

He warned this condition could very likely lead to the appearance of fake public accountants, including those claiming to be official auditors while not actually registered at the Finance Ministry.

"We're worried fake public accountants will mushroom with the upcoming elections, because of the high demand and very limited supply (of public accountants). The General Elections Commission (KPU) must be on alert over this," Tarko warned.

He said even before the demand for public accountants began rising in the run-up to the elections, the IAPI received frequent reports of fake auditing practices, with state enterprises and private companies included in the list of victims.

The fake auditors, Tarko added, employed two methods: changing the name of an official public accountant in a doctored copy of the latter's license, or claiming to be one of 800 registered public accountants and signing using their name.

Adnan Topan Husodo, coordinator of Indonesia Corruption Watch's (ICW) political corruption division, said the bogus practices could create "defective audit results".

Adnan urged the KPU to immediately address the issue and slammed its members' recent plan to visit 14 countries to encourage Indonesians living abroad to vote.

"Despite this very serious problem over audits, the House of Representatives and the KPU appear to pay more attention to less significant matters," he said.

Adnan suggested the House, which is planning slight amendments to the legislative election law, revise articles on campaign fund audits to make their implementation more feasible.

KPU members will commence their overseas trips, which will run until early November, next week, Antara reported. They will travel in pairs and in shift, with Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Manila, New Delhi, Sydney, Cape Town, Cairo, Jeddah, Moscow, The Hague, Paris, Madrid, New York and Havana as their destinations.