Before KPK Arrest, Pemalang Regent Appointed Wife to Hospital Supervisory Board, Ombudsman Had Warned

SEMARANG — The head of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia for Central Java Province, Siti Farida, revealed that prior to the sting operation (OTT) conducted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the Ombudsman had issued a warning to Pemalang Regent Anom Widyantoro regarding a conflict of interest involving him.

This related to Anom’s decision to appoint his wife, Noor Faizah Maenofie, as a member of the Supervisory Board of dr. M. Ashari Regional General Hospital (RSUD) in Pemalang.

Siti said the warning about the conflict of interest was conveyed to Anom in 2026. “Specifically, we had raised the potential conflict of interest concerning the appointment of the hospital’s supervisory board member, who happened to be the Regent’s wife. We stated firmly that this was a potential conflict of interest,” Siti said in an interview on Wednesday (29 July 2026).

She added that a conflict of interest constitutes a form of maladministration in the delivery of public services. “Maladministration is the upstream source of corruption,” she said.

Siti explained that in 2025, the Central Java Ombudsman had conducted an assessment of public services across 15 regencies and cities in Central Java, including Pemalang. In Pemalang’s case, she acknowledged there was a gap in the results, namely between the internal assessment and the public’s assessment. The people of Pemalang, Siti said, had indeed raised numerous concerns about public services there.

“For Pemalang itself, the results in 2025 had not yet reached the level of very good, or in other words were not optimal,” Siti said.