House silent over high-profile graft cases
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The House of Representatives (DPR) sent out the wrong signal in their anticorruption drive on Monday by taking a weak stance over the termination -- by the Attorney General's Office (AGO) -- of the investigation into high-profile graft cases.
After a lengthy meeting to hear the explanations of the Attorney General M.A. Rahman -- pertaining to big-time corruption cases involving former president Soeharto's cronies, Prajogo Pangestu and Joko Ramiadji, and his daughter Siti "Tutut" Hardiyanti Rukmana and also the escape of tycoon Samadikun Hartono -- the House Commission II on legal affairs issued the vague statement that the AGO needed to renew its commitment to enforce the law.
Commission II also agreed to relegate the task of further discussing the corruption cases to the commission's internal team.
"We throw our support behind the AGO's anticorruption drive," Chairman of Commission II Agustin Teras Narang of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) said, concluding the session.
Earlier in the hearing, Rahman told the lawmakers that the decision to drop corruption cases against Soeharto's cronies and daughter was due to lack of evidence against them.
The investigation into the role of business tycoon Prajogo in an alleged mark-up case -- pertaining to the Industrial Forest Estate (HTI) in South Sumatra -- was halted in June after his office had established that the state suffered no losses, Rahman said.
Prajogo -- as the director of HTI developer PT Menara Hutan Buana -- was declared a corruption suspect after he had allegedly marked up the size of lands managed by his company to 193,500 hectares from the original 118,000 hectares in order to procure more reforestation funds.
He said the accusation was proven to be unfounded, as the latest aerial survey by the National Survey and Charting Coordination Agency (Bakosurtanal) showed that there was no mark up in the reforestation work carried out by Prajogo's company.
As for Djoko Ramiadji -- the director of toll road company PT Marga Nurindo Bhakti -- he was exonerated from further legal prosecution after AGO investigators found that he did not sign a falsified commercial paper on the development of the Cawang- Tanjung Priok and Pondok Pinang-Jagorawi toll roads (JORR) in Jakarta, which started in the early 1990s.
Rahman said that in Tutut's case, investigators found no irregularities in the failed construction of fuel pipelines.
In the case of Samadikun Harsono -- who was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzling Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support -- the attorney general said that the prosecutors had followed the proper legal procedures in executing the Supreme Court decision.
However, a number of Commission II members resented the AGO's decision to drop the corruption charges.
Firman Jaya Daeli of PDI Perjuangan said the decision was proof that the AGO had failed to meet the expectations of the public who wanted to see justice upheld.
Fellow lawmakers Mutammimul Ula from the Reform faction said the AGO had not done enough in its drive against corruption.
"I have noted that in the past year, 15 cases of corruption have been exonerated by judges. I have come to the conclusion that most of the prosecutors have not done their jobs properly as they have not filed lawsuits based on strong supporting evidence," he said.