House discovers new documents on 'sale' of disaster funds

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

More documents detailing the practice of selling disaster aid budgets have been discovered by the House of Representatives disciplinary body after it questioned more legislators on Wednesday.

Body chairman Slamet Effendi Yusuf said several documents of agreement between local officials and House members conspiring to embezzle state budget funds had been discovered, including details of the fee percentages and the names of middlemen arranging the meetings.

"One document was about an agreement during the previous House period, and the other one is from the current period. It's too bad that the later is still a draft without any signatures or stamps," he said.

The new finds come after two documents were leaked earlier this month detailing lists of legislators, middle men and elected regional officials, who the documents said had conspired to embezzle disaster relief aid worth Rp 1.09 trillion (US$109.25 million). Legislators demanded a special fee to either add to the amount given or speed up the disbursement.

The legislators are mostly members of the House budgetary committee.

Slamet said the documents also contained names of people from outside the House who allegedly acted as brokers or middlemen by linking local officials with House members, along with their contact numbers, promising they could help "customize" the budget as requested.

"We've been getting a lot of new information, but we will need to re-check before concluding anything," he told said after a two-and-a-half-hour questioning session.

In the previous first documents, several names of non-House members also appear, including Andi Mustakim, an assistant of Mudahir, a member of budgetary committee from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The disciplinary body questioned two more legislators on Wednesday. They were Mohammad Aly Yahya from Golkar Party and Amin Said Husni from the National Awakening Party (PKB).

Mohammad and Amin said they had been questioned about the mechanism of budget deliberations used by the budgetary committee, including the establishment of an unprecedented "verification team" that consisted of some 50 out of 83 budgetary committee members.

A total of seven people have been questioned, including the budgetary committee secretary head Setyanto Nugroho, who admitted to receiving dozens of budget proposals from Mustakim with the endorsement of committee chairman Emir Moeis, of the PDI-P.