Former minister to be named suspect in peat land saga

JAKARTA (JP): The Central Kalimantan prosecutor's office said on Saturday it had enough evidence to name former public works minister Radinal Moochtar a suspect in a corruption case.

The case is linked to an unsuccessful government project to develop one million hectares of unproductive peat land into rice fields and a housing complex in 1996.

Head of the office, Irawady Joenus, was quoted by Antara as saying that preliminary investigations have found a number of alleged instances of misuse of funds in the megaproject.

Irawady said witnesses had revealed the value of the Rp 2 trillion project was marked up.

"They said that the actual cost of building a floodgate was between Rp 400 million and Rp 500 million, but the value had been swelled to between Rp 2.5 billion and Rp 5 billion," Irawady was quoted as saying.

He said that six more people, including a number of government officials, were also likely to be named as suspects in the investigation.

"All suspects will stand trial in Kapuas district court," he said, without specifying when.

Radinal, who served for two five-year terms under the government of former president Soeharto, was questioned by provincial prosecutors earlier this month.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) filed a lawsuit in August against the government of Soeharto's successor B.J. Habibie over the project.

Walhi said the peat land project had caused a "large-scale environmental and social disaster in one single place".

He said the peat bog project, implemented by a 1996 presidential decree issued by Soeharto, was ill-conceived.

It also represented a significant abuse of power by Soeharto, Walhi added.

Soeharto resigned in May last year, just two months after the People's Consultative Assembly had unanimously reelected him. The Habibie government stopped the peat land conversion scheme in June this year.

The project turned out to be one of the worst ecological disasters of the 20th century, Walhi said.

He added that the project was implemented without good planning and was rife with corruption and nepotism.

The Central Jakarta district court rejected the lawsuit recently, saying it had no authority to handle legal proceedings against the case.

State Minister of Transmigration Al Hilal Hamdi unveiled last week that only 32,000 hectares of peat land bore fruits. (byg)