Graft in KPU Jakarta: More corruption or just rumor?

Graft in KPU Jakarta: More corruption or just rumor?

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As long as no-one in the government is touched, then law
enforcers will bravely investigate a case. This is the message we
get from the fact that investigations into alleged corruption in
the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) have been
extremely fast when compared to other investigations into similar
cases involving funds from the Jakarta city budget.

Why? Because the Commission is an independent body, and during
the elections many political parties were probably upset with the
behavior of Commission executives. Therefore there is little
sympathy for them when they get sprung for allegedly stealing
state money.

In less than a month, the Jakarta Prosecutors's Office was
able to name three suspects, detain them, and confiscate assets
that were allegedly purchased with the money that was stolen.

Another surprising move was that prosecutors treated reports
from the City Council's Commission A on legal and administrative
affairs as strong evidence.

The prosecutors also broke with their traditional way of
investigation in not asking for prior recommendation from the
City Audit Agency (Bawasda).

Bawasda, which is part of the Jakarta city bureaucracy, has
frequently been strongly criticized for its poor performance in
disclosing corruption involving high ranking officials of the
city administration.

Therefore, the decision of Jakarta prosecutors to pick up the
corruption case without asking permission from the auditing
agency will hopefully set a precedent in the investigation of
other cases of embezzlement of funds from the city budget.

If the Jakarta Prosecutors' Office did not take the initiative
in investigating the alleged graft in KPU Jakarta, then the audit
report would have been ignored just like all the other ignored
reports.

As an example, in 2003 the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) reported
alleged irregularities in the spending of funds in several
agencies under the city administration worth some Rp 830 billion
(US$85.13 million).

Ignoring the BPK report, Bawasda said there was no corruption
in the agencies mentioned. Police questioned a number of
officials in connection with the report, but later stopped the
investigation, citing lack of evidence.

Another high profile corruption case involved several
officials from the city administration and seven councillors, who
received "double financed trips" of their visits to South Africa,
Japan, and Australia in October, 2000.

Apart from allegedly receiving travel allowances of between
US$5,000 to $10,000 from the city-owned PT. Pembangunan Jaya
Ancol, each person also received Rp 52 million in travel
allowances from the city budget.

The case of alleged corruption in the KPU Jakarta was in fact
not that different from many other corruption cases that have
been ignored.

The disclosure of the alleged graft started from the curiosity
of several councillors about newspaper' reports of several fake
bills for renting houses in the Kepulauan Seribu regency, which
were used as the election body's secretariat.

Commission A followed up on the reports by summoning KPU
Jakarta members and staff as well as relevant officials under the
city administration to seek information about the expenditure of
Rp 168.6 billion for organizing three elections in 2004.

KPU Jakarta failed to give satisfactory explanations for a
number of allegations including mark-ups in procuring vests, flag
poles, and rent for houses in Kepulauan Seribu regency. They
could also not explain why they did not pay Rp 4.2 billion in
taxes.

Currently, prosecutors have detained three suspects -- KPU
Jakarta chairman Muhammad Taufik, KPU Jakarta member A Riza
Patria, and treasurer Neneng Euis Palupi.

Investigations into the case are still far from finished. But
at least it raises some hope that other corruption cases will
also receive equally harsh treatment from law enforcers.

Many viewed the investigation as shock therapy in an effort to
eradicate corruption in the capital, in the hope that it would
have a domino effect of investigations into corruption in
national institutions.

The public still has to wait to see what further action the
prosecutors, police and the Corruption Eradication Commission
(KPK) will take to uncover other corruption cases in the city,
which actually could be resolved quite easily if the spirit of
law enforcers was high, as seemed to be the case with KPU
Jakarta.

There are still many indications that corruption, collusion
and nepotism (KKN) are still rampant in the tendering process for
projects and procurement of goods and services in the city
administration.

First, many tenders for projects, goods and services were only
announced in newspapers with low readership.

Second, visitors to City Hall will notice a group of people
gathering on the left wing of the hall. Many of them are company
executives, seeking fortunes by 'facilitating' companies, which
will be decided as winners in certain tenders.

Their presence is to give the impression that the tender
process is complying with the rules. For that, a winning
candidate needs six or seven front companies to take part in the
tender bidding process. The front companies, however, would be
aware all along that they were not going to win the tender.