Fire destroys state assets records
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A fire on the sixth floor of the finance ministry building that destroyed important documents on state assets early on Tuesday morning has raised suspicions that it may have been set by corruptors trying to destroy documents evidencing their wrongdoings.
Teten Masduki of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said that such suspicions were valid given that similar incidents in the past had also hit other government buildings housing important documents linked to high profile corruption cases.
"If we look at all the cases and all the similarities, there is a major possibility that they were started intentionally by crooked officials in order to eliminate all traces of their corrupt activities," Teten told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
It is not immediately clear which corruption cases might be affected by the fire in the finance ministry. But the Attorney General's Office is in the process of investigating past corruption cases such as those in state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina and in the forestry sector.
The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) had also recently revealed massive irregularities in the use of state and local budget funds over the past two years. The BPK also said in a report that the finance ministry was one of the most corrupt government departments.
In December 1997, a fire gutted the top floors of one of Bank Indonesia's 25-story twin towers in Central Jakarta killing 15 people. The police said that the blaze was the result of arson.
Many suspected the fire was an attempt to destroy documents linked to the misuse of Bank Indonesia liquidity support funds channeled to ailing banks in the wake of the late 1990s financial crisis. But, fortunately, there were back-up copies of the destroyed documents available.
Another similar fire broke out on the ninth floor of the Ministry of Trade and Industry building on Jl. Ridwan Rais in Central Jakarta in December 2001, destroying important documents on trade and import activities.
Yesterday's fire on the sixth floor of the finance ministry, which affected an area occupied by the State Accounting Agency, was actually the second such incident. The first fire occurred in 1997, and, as with Tuesday's incident, it was also claimed at the time that the cause was a short-circuit in the air-conditioning system.
Meanwhile, Wardi, a spokesman for the finance ministry, said that the ministry could recover copies of the destroyed documents from other institutions. However, he admitted that there was the possibility that the back-up documents could be tampered with.
He said that it would take a very long time to check whether the huge pile of back-up documents was genuine or not.
There were no casualties as a result of the finance ministry blaze as the building was empty at the time. The fire started at 5 a.m. and was extinguished by 30 fire engines two hours later.