Attorney General under fire for bad performance
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The House of Representatives slammed the Attorney General's Office for its slow action in handling big-time corruption cases, including the cases involving the government liquidity support (BLBI) that cost the state billions of U.S. dollars.
Legislators of the House's Commission II on home and legal affairs charged that the office had taken way too much time to complete investigations and that it had failed to show a consistent policy on treating the alleged corruption criminals with the various sentencing demands proposed to the courts.
J.E. Sahetapy, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), questioned why Samadikun Hartono, president commissioner of now defunct Bank Modern, got a mere one-year prison sentence for embezzling Rp 169 billion (US$18.7 million) at the height of the economic crisis when millions of people were starving here. He also asked a similar question about Bank Servitia's David Nusa Wijaya -- currently in hiding -- who swindled Rp 1.27 trillion.
Patrialis Akbar of the National Mandate Party (PAN) demanded that Attorney General M.A. Rachman explain why the state prosecutors failed to handle the high-profile cases as tough as they did with small-scale cases.
"The BLBI cases involved trillions of rupiah in losses to the state. But how come your subordinates pay more attention to small cases, such as a domestic disputes?!" Patrialis asked in an apparently angry tone.
Rachman did not reply as Commission Chairman Teras Narang and Deputy Chairman Ferry Mursyidan Baldan immediately stepped in and insisted on terminating the hearing which had already taken over two hours of their time.
Julius Usman, also of PDI-Perjuangan, implied that Rachman's woeful performance was deliberate and aimed at slowly ruining President Megawati Soekarnoputri's administration due to the public's growing doubts about her stance against corruption.
"Nothing good comes from the Attorney General's Office so far... There is no answer for all the legal problems we now have," Julius added.
The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) found that 95 percent, or some Rp 138.4 trillion, of the emergency loans extended to 48 commercial banks had either been misused or were disbursed in violation of banking regulations.
Rachman said that since the investigation started in August 2000, investigators had revealed another four additional corruption cases from the 48 cases found by BPK.
Twelve of the total 52 cases had been brought to trial, while the others are still apparently under investigation.
Two of those cases ended in a not guilty verdict for the bankers, while the investigation into the commissioner of Bank Dagang Indonesia (BDI), Sukamdani Gito Sardjono, has been dropped altogether due to what they suddenly claimed was an absence of evidence that he had embezzled from personal accounts during the massive bank runs.
The hearing concluded with the apparently angry legislators giving the green light for a 77 percent raise for the Attorney General's Office annual budget for 2003 which will bring the total to Rp 177 billion.
The legislators also urged the office to improve their performance, including the handling of human rights cases.
"For an intensive supervision into the prosecutors' policies, we agreed to set up a consultative forum which will be held on a regular basis," Teras Narang said.