House calls for legal action against ballot box producer

House calls for legal action against ballot box producer

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives Commission II for legal and domestic
affairs asked on Monday the General Elections Commission (KPU) to
take legal measures against the ballot box tender winner PT
Survindo Indah Prestasi for its failure to produce the boxes it
was contracted to make.

The commission deputy chairman Abdurrahman Gaffar said legal
action was necessary to prevent any possibility of the ballot box
fiasco from jeopardizing the general election, which begins in 67
days.

"KPU must be strict and set a precedent for all firms that
fail to provide election materials, particularly the ballot
boxes. They must also find other solutions to prevent a lack of
materials," Abdurrahman said at the conclusion of the
commission's hearing with members of the KPU and the Elections
Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) at the House on Monday.

The controversial tender dominated the hearing, with no less
than 26 legislators questioning the process of the tender.

A source with the KPU said the State Audit Agency (BPK) had
begun auditing the ballot box tender itself to find out if
possible irregularities occurred in the process.

Both the House and KPU also agreed to send a team to monitor
the factories producing various equipment, including ballot
boxes.

The Rp 311 billion ballot box brouhaha began when the winning
firm Survindo only produced around 30,000 boxes by Dec. 23, when
it had to produce 600,000.

After that, KPU split 40 percent of the total 2.19 million
boxes and contracted PT Tjakrindo Mas to do them, which ranked a
distant second in the tender rating system used, which would
technically not have qualified them above a minimum standard on
the scoring system.

As of Jan. 14, the firm could only produce about 316,000 of a
targeted 925,000 boxes.

KPU concluded that the company did not have sufficient
financial support to produce ballot boxes, so on Jan. 21, KPU
finally cut the contract with Survindo and gave 10 percent of
2.19 million boxes to PT Almas, which ranked third in the tender.

But it remains unclear how many boxes must be produced by
Tjakrindo.

The fact that the company was unable to meet the preliminary
target has raised fears that it could not finish the production
and distribution to all regencies across the country by the March
5 deadline.

During the hearing, KPU member Mulyana W. Kusumah said KPU had
just found that Survindo was unable to produce ballot boxes on
schedule after the firm had resumed production.

"Banks withdrew their financial support from Survindo as the
firm failed to meet a new requirement," he said.

He added that KPU would make a contingency plan on all
logistics procurement, including ballot boxes.

Mulyana earlier said that KPU might use wooden ballot boxes if
the production of aluminum ballot boxes failed.

Separately, KPU member Anas Urbaningrum announced that some 5
percent of around 8,800 House candidates failed a screening to
become eligible to run.

Anas, who chairs the legislator candidate verification team,
said most of the disqualified candidates had submitted fake
education certificates, had no membership cards and failed to
declare their wealth.

KPU will make a decision on the final list of legislative
candidates on Tuesday, and will announce the results publicly on
Wednesday and Thursday.