Habibie's testimony damaging for Akbar

Habibie's testimony damaging for Akbar

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Former president B.J. Habibie's written testimony in the Rp 40
billion Bulog scandal read during a hearing on Monday has
solidified the case against his former minister/cabinet secretary
Akbar Tandjung.

Habibie said in the testimony read out by prosecutor Fachmi on
Monday that he ordered Akbar to ensure that the distribution of
food to the poor in early 1999 should be in compliance with
existing regulations.

Habibie, who is now in Germany tending his sick wife, made the
testimony before Attorney General's Office investigators on Feb.
25 this year.

He said that the regulations he meant included Presidential
Decree No. 16/1994 on the management of the state budget where a
formal report is required and should be accounted for at the end
of the president's tenure.

"The reason I appointed Akbar to run the program using the Rp
40 billion belonging to the State's Logistics Agency (Bulog) was
because it was one of the cabinet secretary's functions to secure
my directive.

"(But) I never received or was told how the program was
implemented. I learned that there was a follow up to my order
just recently from the media when the case blew up," Habibie
testified.

Habibie delivered his order during a Feb. 10, 1999 meeting
with then coordinating minister for social welfare and poverty
eradication Haryono Suyono, minister of industry and trade/Bulog
chief Rahardi Ramelan and Akbar.

Bulog money was used, he said, because foreign loans had not
yet arrived while the state budget was in short supply. "But the
government has to react fast to recover the government's
declining image in the people's eyes."

Akbar, now the chairman of the Golkar party and the speaker of
the House of Representatives, in his response to the court denied
that Habibie had specifically mentioned the 1994 decree and that
he ever made a report on the program.

"I resigned from my post on May 10, 1999, when the program was
not yet completed. There was no formal hand over to my successor
Muladi so there was no chance to make the report ... I also made
an oral report to the president on one occasion," he said.

Akbar and two people he asked to run the project -- chairman
of the Raudlatul Jannah Foundation Dadang Sukandar and contractor
Winfried Simatupang -- are defendants in the case. Rahardi is
also being tried separately.

Akbar is being charged with abusing his power by swindling the
money with the help of his two accomplices. Many believe that the
money had actually gone to Golkar's coffers to finance its
campaign for the general election that year.

The court also heard written testimonies from the
administrations of villages in four provinces in Java who the
Foundation claimed to have sent the food packages to in mid 1999.

Only a few of them admitted to receiving the packages from the
Foundation. Head of Payaman village in East Java, Mahdi Rahardjo,
stated in his testimony to investigators that the packages came
in small amounts.

Winfried, in his response to the testimony, said that he had
used some Rp 2 billion of the Foundation's money to buy and
distribute food packages to villagers in East and Central Java
and kept the remaining Rp 40 billion at home.

The Bulog money is now in the hands of the investigators.

Presiding Judge Amiruddin Zakaria adjourned the hearing until
May 27 to question five witnesses from Bulog and the Foundation
who earlier gave contradictory testimonies.