AGO faulted over recovery of graft funds
Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Legislators and activists lashed out at the Attorney General's Office (AGO) for not being serious in its efforts to recover over Rp 6.66 trillion (some US$660 million) in fines and restitution monies from those convicted of corruption.
A report by the State Audit Agency (BPK) earlier revealed that the prosecution service had failed to recover Rp 6.66 trillion in fines and restitution that the courts had ordered convicted corruptors to pay.
The annual report was presented to the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
In response, the Attorney General's Office argued that its failure was due to difficulties in tracing the assets of convicted persons, or their heirs, in cases where they had already been transferred to third parties.
Other problems included the fact that some of those convicted corruptors were still at large, while others claimed to be unable to pay the money by producing "lack of adequate means" certificates, the prosecution service said.
The AGO, however, vowed to work harder to enforce the court orders against all those concerned.
Legislator Azlaini Agus from House's law and human rights commission said the AGO was not resolute enough in seizing the assets of convicted persons.
"From the very beginning of a corruption trial, the prosecutors know all about the assets of a defendant. These should be frozen immediately so that it will not be transferred somewhere else or assigned to someone else," she said.
Azlaini said she found it difficult to believe that some of the corruptors could not pay the fines and restitution orders imposed on them by the courts.
"That's nonsense. It's impossible that they spent billions of rupiah in embezzled funds. They must have invested in many business endeavors, which the AGO must trace and freeze," said the National Awakening Party (PKB) lawmaker.
Fellow commission member, Gayus Lumbuun, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the AGO should write to the Supreme Court, asking it to automatically increase the prison terms of convicted persons who failed to return their ill-gotten gains to the state.
"In each case, there's a clause that if a corruptor cannot pay restitution as the court orders, his or her prison term will be increased by a few months or years," he argued.
Gayus said he was suspicious that the AGO was keeping the money for itself.
"If what they say is really the case, the AGO must come clean with the BPK, and attach certificates from the Supreme Court stating that it cannot get the money owed in these cases, for example, so that we know AGO is not faking anything," said Gayus.
Echoing the legislators' criticism, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) deputy chief Luki Djani said the prosecution service should cooperate more effectively with other relevant institutions, such as the Financial Transaction Analysis Center and the National Land Agency, in its attempts to trace assets.
"The AGO must then act strictly and resolutely in freezing these assets. In other countries, prosecutors would just throw the person out of his house and seized it," he said.