Councillors get Rp 30 m 'bribe'

JAKARTA: The speaker of the Bogor municipal council has admitted to receiving Rp 1.59 billion of taxpayer money in late February from Mayor Iswara Natanegara and distributed the money to council members - Rp 30 million each.

Mochamad Sahid, the council speaker, however, told reporters on Thursday that the money had nothing to do with their approval of the mayor's accountability speech last month, Antara reported.

The scandal was revealed to the public by Nelwan Zola, secretary general of the non-governmental organization, The Indonesian Reform Movement (GerIndo), earlier this week.

Zola said that an investigation conducted by GerIndo found that the mayor authorized the transfer of the government funds to Sahid through a letter -- No.931/464/RT/2003 -- dated Feb. 28, 2003. GerIndo requested an explanation from both the mayor and the council speaker about the money. Sahid said he was busy, and the mayor refused to respond.

On April 30, Gerindo reported the case to the local prosecutor's office. A week later, after no response from the prosecutors, Nelwan revealed the scandal to the press. --JP