JP/2/HABIBIE

JP/2/HABIBIE
Prosecutors lose precious time in questioning Habibie

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

State prosecutors have wasted two important days in their
efforts to unveil the alleged misuse of Rp 40 billion in State
Logistics Agency (Bulog) funds involving former state secretary
Akbar Tandjung as they failed to expose the underlying political
links between key witness former president B.J. Habibie and the
suspect.

The Attorney General's Office prosecutors completed their
questioning of Habibie on Tuesday and will now examine his
accounts.

The office spokesman Barman Zahir told reporters after the
four-hour questioning session on Tuesday that the 10 questions
posed to Habibie were aimed only at verifying his answers given
during Monday's session.

"The investigators were satisfied with the questioning of
Habibie," Barman said.

In the questioning, Habibie confirmed that the government's
project to disburse food for the poor in 1999, which used the
Bulog funds, was part of the social safety net program.

Lawyer Yan Djuanda Saputra told reporters that Akbar was
instructed to use the funds properly in accordance with existing
regulations.

Such regulations related to the project, the investigators
revealed, included Presidential Decree No. 190/1998 on the
organizing of a task force to implement the social safety net
program and Law No. 20/1997 on non-taxable state revenue.

The presidential decree delegates the authority to organize
the programs to the minister of finance and the coordinating
minister for people's welfare and poverty eradication without
involving the Akbar's office of the cabinet secretary.

However, the investigators failed to pursue the fact that
Habibie violated his own decree by assigning Akbar to manage the
project instead of the related ministers who were also in
attendance in the Feb. 10, 1999 meeting when the former president
outlined the policy.

The alleged scam came months before the general election, in
which the Akbar-led Golkar party nominated Habibie for president.

Habibie claimed that he never received a report on the project
and insisted that Akbar submit one. However, Yan Djuanda said,
Habibie did not consider that Akbar had done anything wrong in
running the project.

The investigators have named Akbar, who is the current speaker
of House of Representatives, as a suspect in the case, after
investigators found no proof of such a food distribution project
which was supposedly carried out in five provinces in Java.

Akbar's appointees to run the project: Raudlatul Jannah
Foundation chairman Dadang Sukandar and his contractor Winfried
Simatupang have also been named suspects.

Investigators also questioned Dadang and Winfried on Tuesday.