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