Bulog case witness fails to show up

Bulog case witness fails to show up

JAKARTA: The State Logistic Agency's (Bulog)'s Achmad
Ruskandar failed to appear before an investigating team of the
Attorney General's Office on Thursday, despite having been
summonsed in his capacity as a witness in the misuse of Rp 40
billion of the agency's funds.

Attorney General's Office spokesman Muljohardjo told the press
that Achmad's summons was intended to help with gathering
evidence over the graft, which had implicated Golkar Party
chairman Akbar Tandjung.

"Both Ruskandar and Wilfred Simatupang, (not L. Simatupang as
reported earlier) failed to appear," Muljohardjo said, adding,
"Simatupang replied to our summons by saying that he was still
abroad, while Ruskandar did not give any reason of his absence."

As reported earlier, chairman of the Raudlatul Jannah
Foundation Dadang Sukandar claimed that he had used four
contractors to distribute about 1,620,000 packages of basic
foodstuffs to several regions in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, East Java,
Central Java, and West Java. Simatupang was one of the
contractors, according to Dadang.

Ruskandar was Bulog's deputy chief of finance, who handed over
the funds in the form of checks to Dadang at Akbar's office while
the later was still state secretary.

Muljohardjo, however, did not disclose when his office would
reissue the summons for the two witnesses. -- JP