AGO dismisses report of rife fund abuses

AGO dismisses report of rife fund abuses

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) rejected on Friday the audit
of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) that named the law enforcement
institution as the country's leading state money abuser, saying
that the audit had been performed only at several prosecutor's
offices.

Spokesman for the Attorney General's Office Kemas Yahya Rahman
said the BPK had apparently considered the delay in the payment
of state revenue collected by the office as state losses.

"There are two kinds of state funds in the audit that we have
allegedly misused, namely the non-tax state income (PNBP) and the
development expenditure," Yahya said.

The Attorney General's Office collected PNBP from the fines
collected from convicts.

Law No. 20/1997 on non-tax state revenues says PNBP covers all
non-tax revenue. All government institutions are authorized to
collect this sort of income, but are obliged to send it to the
state as soon as possible.

Article 2 of the law says fines and hearing fees imposed on
convicts were the main source of PNBP from the Attorney General's
Office.

However, Article 8 opens the possibility for each government
agency to use some of the funds for health services, training,
law enforcement work and conservation work.

Yahya said many convicts had failed to pay their fines on time
or because they filed an appeal with higher courts.

He added that many convicts also paid the fines and fees on an
installment basis.

"These delayed payments, are considered by the BPK as
irregularities," Yahya said.

Besides, Kemas said, the audit was conducted only on several
prosecutor's offices, such as Banten and Riau, where they found
the alleged misuse of state funds.

"Based on these audits, BPK made a generalization that all the
prosecutor's offices had misused state money," Kemas said.

Banten Prosecutor's Office had not yet collected Rp 6.23
billion from convicts, which was termed fund misuse. BPK also
discovered the alleged misuse of Rp 804 million in development
funds in the provincial prosecutor's office, which Kemas said was
additional expenditure needed to build a parking lot.

In the case of the Riau Prosecutor's Office, the BPK accused
it of misusing Rp 11.4 billion in PNBP.

Kemas complained that the BPK announced the alleged misuse of
state funds despite the fact that the state auditors and state
prosecutors had met to discuss the matter.

"We have met with the BPK to clarify their findings. We made
several follow-up steps as advised by the BPK. So, there should
be no problem," said Kemas.