JP/4/graft

JP/4/graft

Cautiousness slows police probe into graft cases

Eva C. Komandjaja
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The police say they are cautiously moving on a number of graft
cases in state-owned enterprises, asserting that some of the
relevant documents and evidence submitted to the police would be
inadmissible in court.

Director of the Anticorruption Unit at National Police
Headquarters, Brig. Gen. Indarto, who is also deputy head of the
interdepartmental anticorruption team, said the police
investigators were also being extra careful in investigating the
cases as they implicated some top government officials.

"We know that the public are growing restless with so many
stories about graft being published in the newspapers, and the
fact that no suspects have been named yet by the police. But we
have to do it our own way," Indarto told The Jakarta Post over
the weekend.

Head of the antigraft team at the Office of the State Minister
for State Enterprises, Lendo Novo, had criticized the police for
being too slow in investigating suspected graft cases. The team
said that it had submitted complete files to the police on at
least seven cases, meaning that the police should have named
suspects by now.

But Indarto said that the police could not charge any suspects
yet as they had to verify all of the evidence that had been
submitted. "These people (the members of ministerial
anticorruption team) are not real investigators so they are not
aware of the problems we face when conducting our probes.

"We can't just charge people as suspects if we don't have
strong prima facie evidence and if the preliminary investigations
are not complete," Indarto said.

From a document obtained by The Jakarta Post, it appears that
the seven graft cases include a dubious Rp 745 billion loan from
Bank BRI to the Domba Mas Group; the alleged misuse of Rp 70
billion for the procurement of IT equipment at BRI; and an
alleged Rp 23.6 billion markup in the purchase of a ship for
state-owned ferry company PT ASDP.

The other cases involve an alleged markup of $2.2 million in
the purchase of a South Korean ship by PT ASDP; an alleged markup
worth Rp 1.92 billion in human resources consultancy fees at
airport operator PT Angkasa Pura, the alleged violation of an
investment agreement at insurance firm PT Asuransi Jiwasraya,
which resulted in losses of Rp 830 billion, and an alleged Rp 337
billion graft case involving state-owned electricity firm PLN's
customer information system.

"All of the cases are still under preliminary investigation,"
Indarto said.

He added that the police investigators needed to refine the
information obtained from the documents submitted by the
government team as some of it would be inadmissible in court.

"Besides, we're not only handling graft cases in state
enterprises. We have a lot of other cases waiting to be processed
as well," Indarto added.

Meanwhile, chairman of Indonesian Police Watch, Neta S. Pane,
said that the slow pace of the investigations was partly due to a
lack of professionalism among some police investigators.

"We're afraid that some of the (police) insiders are working
with the suspects so as to intentionally slow down the
investigations. This is common practice," Neta told the Post.

Neta urged National Police chief Gen. Sutanto to reform the
police by replacing officers who were not professional in their
work.

"If the people inside the police were professional, then of
course the police would be quicker in investigating crimes, and
would also be able to regain public trust," Neta said.