Corruption cases up, recovery process slow
Corruption cases up, recovery process slow
JAKARTA (JP): The government has so far recovered only Rp 33 billion (about US$15 million) of an estimated Rp 1.1 trillion in state money embezzled during the 1994/1995 fiscal year, a senior official revealed yesterday.
The figure of Rp 1.1 trillion has emerged from the investigation of 212 of the 358 corruption cases uncovered by the Attorney General's Office to date, Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes A. Soetomo said.
The huge loss of the government money was revealed in a meeting attended by the Attorney General and inspector generals and supervisory officials from several government agencies.
Soetomo told reporters that the meeting discussed better coordination between the Attorney General's Office and other government agencies for the purpose of safeguarding development funds and obtaining accurate data on corruption.
He said that most corruption cases had occurred in the Ministry of Home Affairs, with 106 cases, followed by the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small Enterprises, with 62 cases, closely followed by Bank Indonesia (the Central Bank), with 59 cases.
Soetomo declined to reveal how much the money had been embezzled in each of the government institutions.
He said that, of the 358 corruption cases, 280 cases had been reported by the Attorney General's Office, 17 by letter to the Vice President's Post Box 5000, 18 by the State Audit Agency and 27 by inspectorate generals of various ministries.
The number of corruption cases uncovered this year was higher than both last year's 315 cases and the 293 cases uncovered in 1992/1993, he said.
Attorney General Singgih told the meeting that most of the corruption cases currently under investigation had occurred in the taxation and state banking sectors as well as in the land acquisition sector.
He said corruption in the tax sector involved administrative manipulation in which officials abuse their positions.
He said a common case was that in which exporters were able to falsify documents because of slack supervision on the part of officials.
He said cases of "fictitious" tax refunds became more complicated where there had been collusion between exporters and tax officials.
In the state banking sector, corruption commonly occurs when bank officials abuse their authority, he said.
He said that some exporters manipulated credit application procedures with the help of state bank officials, who failed to thoroughly check and evaluate the application forms.
Corruption in state banking circles was also facilitated by slack internal controls on the credit approval and disbursement sections, he said.
Singgih specifically referred to the Golden Key Group case, in which businessman Eddy Tansil managed to obtain a loan of Rp 1 trillion from the state-owned Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo) without proper documents or guarantees.
In land procurement, Singgih said, corrupt individuals inflate the prices of land earmarked for development projects. (imn)