House urged to spring clean, starting with its Speaker

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Apart from completing the delayed deliberations of numerous draft laws as its priority agenda, the House of Representatives should no longer shun the widespread demands for a graft inquiry into its own Speaker Akbar Tandjung, say observers.

The observers were speaking separately to The Jakarta Post here on Saturday as the House was scheduled to end its month-long recess and commence on Monday.

The debate over the need to establish a special committee to look into Akbar, locally known by its acronym as Pansus, is expected to be on offer later this month.

"The establishment of Pansus on Akbar is extremely crucial to know the evil scenario behind this scandal," J. Kristiadi said, referring to the Akbar's current status as a defendant in a major corruption trial.

He argued that not only did the discrepancies, which surfaced during the trials implicate Akbar, but that he was also trying to "fool the public, and insulting our common sense".

"And this should therefore be uncovered further by setting up the inquiry committee," Kristiadi added.

He said the committee would be able to "clarify the goings-on that have been covered up" in the trials.

Akbar, also chairman of the Golkar Party -- which is the second largest faction in the House -- is on trial facing charges of misuse of Rp 40 billion funds from the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), when he served as minister/state secretary in former president B.J. Habibie's Cabinet in 1999.

He and other suspects in the same case had claimed the funds were disbursed to provide food aid packages for the needy.

But public lies surfaced later when two suspects, businessman Winfried Simatupang and chairman of the Islamic Raudlatul Jannah Foundation Dadang Sukandar, confessed that the funds had not been spent on the project.

With the discrepancies emerging in the court, Kristiadi further said he was convinced that Akbar would no longer be able to avoid conviction.

"It's seems very difficult now for Akbar to escape this one. He has only two choices -- to save himself or Golkar," added the political scientist from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, criminologist of the University of Indonesia, was of a similar view that the establishment of Pansus to investigate Akbar should remain on the top of the House's agenda as the court proceedings were still "unpredictable".

However, she underlined that the proposed House investigation should not affect the ongoing trial for the scandal, widely dubbed as "Buloggate II".

She instead said that what should be treated as the top priority for the legislature was to speed up the deliberation of a number of bills needed to be endorsed as soon as possible.

Of 22 bills listed for priority in the last sitting period, only two were endorsed while twenty others were delayed, to be deliberated upon in the upcoming session.

Concurring with Harkristuti and Kristiadi was constitutional law expert Satya Arinanto, also from the University of Indonesia. He urged the legislature to continue to pursue the previously- omitted debates on the need to examine the Bulog scandal.

He argued that the political and legal measures against Akbar should be undertaken simultaneously so as to further unravel the clandestine scenario in the scandal.

The three experts also agreed on urging the House and the government to prioritize the deliberations of three political bills, which were still being held at the Ministry of Home Affairs for unclear reasons.

The government was scheduled to submit the antiterrorism bill in June to show its commitment to fighting the war on terror.