Committee finds enough evidence of House graft

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives' disciplinary committee said it has found prima facie evidence of a conspiracy among lawmakers to "sell" budget allocations.

The committee said it would question a number of third parties, believed to be brokers who acted as intermediaries between lawmakers and local officials to speed up disbursements or boost allocations in return for bribes paid to the legislators, mostly members of the House budget committee.

"There are one or two members who seem to be strongly implicated in these practices. We need to question their accomplices to confirm the submissions we have received," disciplinary committee chairman Slamet Effendi Yusuf said on Thursday.

He said the committee had obtained incriminating documents from a lawmaker who had been questioned previously.

"There are two cases here, in January and in August. The bribes involved amount to some Rp 1.4 billion, paid by two businessmen to ensure they got contracts," said Slamet.

The two reportedly paid Rp 800 million and Rp 600 million respectively to secure the contracts.

The January case involved the disbursement of leftover funds from the 2004 budget, while the August case involved the relief funds allocated in 2005 for disaster-struck regions.

"We have data on the locations where meetings were held, hotels, the rooms, the name cards of the House members and the middlemen," said Slamet.

Therefore, he said, the members of the disciplinary committee would continue their visits to the regions to meet with local officials as part of its investigations during the House recess, which starts next week.

"The team will now verify the findings to date," said Slamet.

Committee members visited a number of regions several weeks ago, but came away empty handed as local officials refused to talk.

Also on Thursday, the committee questioned budget committee member Totok Daryanto, from the National Mandate Party (PAN), about an alleged request he made for a 15 percent kickback to help augment a budget allocation.

"We checked the information we received that Totok had asked for a 15 percent fee to increase the budget allocation for a department working with Commission X (on education and sport) in the House. Totok claimed he was only joking at the time," said Slamet.

The request for the bribe, he said, was made by Totok using the cell phone of another lawmaker, who will also be questioned.

Totok denied ever holding meetings with local government officials to talk about budget payments or making any kickback demands.