Corruption rampant among councillors
Corruption rampant among councillors
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta
Corruption run amok seems to have become the order of the day
within the country's legislatures as the list of criminal cases
involving policy makers from all administrative levels grows at
the rate of one new case per day, according to the latest
Attorney General's Office (AGO) data.
AGO spokesman Kemas Yahya Rahman explained on Wednesday that
the number of legislators implicated in corruption cases across
the country had increased from 270 in May to 300 in June.
"Many of them have been accused of misusing state funds by
allocating money for fictitious programs. Many others received
bribe money during the elections of their regent, mayor or
governor," said Rahman.
According to a list released by the prosecutor's office, there
are currently 300 corruption cases that they are working on
involving legislators representing 30 of the country's 32
provinces.
The list suggested that corruption was not confined to one
area or one or two main islands, but indeed nationwide, from
Natuna island in the north of the country to Lombok, and from
Central and West Java to East Kutai in Central Kalimantan, just
to name a few.
Other corruption cases involved the use of fictitious
documents to claim double the money on a project that may or may
not exist as well as the misuse of cooperative funds.
Kemas said that the state losses could run into the trillions
of rupiah range as each as the cases averaged between Rp 1
billion (US$111,000) and Rp 10 billion.
"However, we don't know for sure the amount of state losses
because these cases are all being investigated. We will reveal
the total when we know for sure," he said.
The country has been rocked by a dizzying series of corruption
cases involving hundreds of councillors in the last two months.
In a spectacular example of a corruption conspiracy involving
nearly the entire legislative body, the Padang district court in
West Sumatra sentenced 43 of 55 provincial councillors to prison
on May 17 for embezzling billions of rupiah from the 2002
provincial budget.
However, the rash of investigations has raised questions on
whether the AGO's moves are politically motivated considering
that none of the local administration heads had been implicated
and Attorney General M.A. Rachman has specifically ordered his
prosecutors to investigate councillors across the country ahead
of the presidential election.
Several analysts have suggested that other local government
officials, including governors and regents, must also be
investigated because it was next to impossible that they knew
nothing about the misuse of state funds.
Kemas dismissed allegations that the increased legal activity
was connected to the AGO efforts to increase Megawati's
anticorruption image ahead of the July 5 presidential election,
saying that his office had began investigating most of the cases
long before the election was scheduled.
"We'd never do such a thing just to boost our image or because
the Attorney General's term will come to an end or because of the
election. Most of the cases began two or three years ago. We will
investigate the heads of local administrations once we finish
with the legislatures," pledged Kemas.