30 officials being looked at for roles in vehicle scam

JAKARTA (JP): Thirty officials of the city supplies office are currently under scrutiny for their alleged involvement in marking up the number of city-owned vehicles in the city budget thus causing the administration a loss of Rp 16 billion, an official said on Wednesday.

Deputy Governor for Administrative Affairs Abdul Kahfi said that the administration had yet to determine the punishment for the officials and added that they were still studying the extent of the officials' malfeasance.

He said that the city inspectorate office had found that the allegedly errant officials had registered more than 2,000 vehicles which no longer belonged to the administration in the 1998/1999 city budget.

The officials had also registered vehicles without documents that proved they belonged to the administration.

"Through that practice they reaped illegal profits for themselves," he said.

Kahfi said that the 30 officials were still on duty under tight supervision until the administration determined the form of punishment on the basis of existing regulations.

The city had lost about Rp 16 billion in funds allocated for the maintenance of official vehicles.

The total allocation for all of the city's official vehicles was Rp 37.41 billion. According to data from the supplies office, the real number of official vehicles covered by the routine expenditure was only 3,873, far below the figure of 6,797 that was reported for the budget calculation.

City administration secretary Fauzi Bowo said earlier that the total losses from the mark-up practices reached only Rp 7 billion.

Contacted separately on Tuesday, head of the city supplies office Dadang Ruskandar confirmed that 30 out of his 150 subordinates were under investigation.

He said that they include the office's two section heads and three sub-section heads with the rest being staff members.

"I support the investigation for the sake of creating a clean government," he said.

Dadang also revealed a finding that some of his staff had embezzled about Rp 400 million in funds set aside for procurement of vehicle batteries and tires.

"The city budget had allocated Rp 2 billion for materials provision but the assigned officials spent only 80 percent of it," he said.

However, Dadang refused to reveal more details on the errant officials.

He said he had reported the case to Governor Sutiyoso and it had been handled by the inspectorate office. (ind)