Former councillors guilty of graft

Former councillors guilty of graft

Suherjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang

Amid the ongoing crackdown on corruption, Semarang District Court
on Thursday handed down one-year suspended jail terms to 11
former city councillors found guilty of corruption.

The suspended jail terms mean that each of the former
councillors will walk free, but any one of them can be put behind
bars for one year should he commit a crime over the course of the
next two years, said the district court judicial panel.

The 11 defendants sat on the 45-strong city council between
1994 and 2004. They went on trial last February.

In three separate courtrooms on Thursday, three different
judicial panels concluded that the 11 defendants had not
inflicted financial losses on the state. However, they agreed
that the defendants had conspired to misappropriate state funds.

Initially, the defendants were charged with corruption in
connection with the budget process during their early years on
the council.

They had incorporated an item in the council budget named the
councillors' service allowance account, which amounted to Rp 2.16
billion, while at the time also making allocations for official
travel allowances amounting to Rp 1.375 billion and council
activities support allowances amounting to Rp 1.115 billion.

Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accused the
councillors of manipulating the budget for their own ends.

After the case surfaced, then Central Java Governor Mardiyanto
ordered the city councillors to amend the budget so as to ensure
that state funds were not misappropriated.

Besides the 11 former Semarang city councillors, other courts
in Central Java are currently trying hundreds of former and
serving councillors from 18 out of a total of 35 cities/regencies
in the province on corruption charges.