House discovers new documents on 'sale' of disaster funds
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.