Fire destroys state assets records
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.