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.