Emil urges govt to probe WB leakage
Emil urges govt to probe WB leakage
JAKARTA (JP): Senior economist Emil Salim urged the government
yesterday to take further steps in investigating the alleged
leakage of World Bank loans, saying it had been a problem for
decades.
Emil said Coordinating Minister for Development Supervision
and State Administrative Reforms Hartarto Sastrosoenarto should
take a harder look at the ministries using World Bank funds.
"Hartarto should directly investigate, case by case or project
by project, because the leakage happens in the projects. The
leakage can be traced through data from the inspectorate general
and the BPKP (the Development Finance Comptroller)," Emil said
after opening a seminar on the role of cooperatives in the reform
era.
Emil was commenting on a recent report in the Asian Wall
Street Journal that quoted a World Bank internal memorandum
stating that officials in Jakarta were believed to have siphoned
off more than 20 percent of the bank's money earmarked for the
country.
The paper quoted the report as saying that much of the
corruption involved state contracts with firms owned or
controlled by government officials and their relatives.
The report found the worst siphoning of funds -- 25 percent or
more -- in the ministries of home affairs, transmigration and
forestry, the Journal said.
Emil, a senior minister under one of former president
Soeharto's cabinets and now an outspoken government critic, said
it would be difficult to determine the exact percentage of funds
siphoned off, but admitted that corruption in World Bank-financed
projects had become public knowledge.
Emil said that when he was minister of transportation from
1973 to 1978, he received a report about a leakage of funds under
an export credit scheme provided by the U.S Export Import Bank to
finance the Palapa satellite project.
"I checked the report directly with the president of the U.S
Exim Bank and found nothing to support such an allegation. That's
why I suggested the government trace it directly to the actual
project and not to the donor," he said.
Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin Nasution urged
the World Bank to announce which projects in his ministry had had
leakages.
"I think the World Bank should be more specific as to which
projects were affected by corruption and to what extent, so that
we can take the appropriate steps.
"If the World Bank lets the issue linger based on such a
general, open-ended report, our image in the international
community will be damaged," Muslimin added.
Muslimin admitted some leakage of World Bank funds but argued
the amount could not have been as large as the internal
memorandum stated.
"I don't deny the problems (of corruption in the ministry)...
but the 20 percent figure is a big question mark. How could they
have come up with that figure?"
He said he had sent a report to Hartarto indicating which
projects in the ministry had been financed by the World Bank.
The Kerinci Seblat National Park project in Sumatra is the
biggest project financed by World Bank funds, he said, adding
that the bank had provided $30 million to the endeavor.
Latest reports put World Bank loan disbursements in Indonesia
as of July, 1997, at about $11 billion. (gis)