Bulogate criminal category

Bulogate criminal category

I observed with interest remarks made by police chief Alex
Bambang and Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, that the Rp 35
billion drain is a criminal offense.

I tend to disagree since a law is missing declaring that these
extra-budgetary funds that are floating around are governmental
funds. There must be some 600 of these surrogate accounts,
including the seven odd foundations from former president
Soeharto, every provincial governor, every regent and every
state-owned company, numbering 200 or so, which have created
these Frankenstein sources of evil.

As a citizen uneducated in governmental affairs, I can only
conclude that governmentalstate funds are those which flow into
the state coffers. Thus, if these sums are accumulated from god-
knows-where, into accounts where each minister or high-ranking
director (general) or inspector or official of a trustee fund can
sign checks, etc., then these are funds belonging to them?

Thus, logic commands that there is no criminal case, just the
usage of funds.

I wonder if members of the Consultative Group on Indonesia
(CGI) have this same system of free-floating accounts in their
countries?

And if the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) insisted that these practices here should stop at once,
abolishing the bad habits of the old Soeharto regime?

And if they did overlook this serious flaw, are they then
seriously incompetent, as Jeffrey Winters pointed out some five
years ago? Or are they also on the take themselves ?

YOESOEF SANTO

Jakarta