Kim Johannes may be charged again
Kim Johannes may be charged again
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad said yesterday that the investigation of Kim Johannes, recently acquitted from a corruption charge related to alleged fictitious exports, could be reopened.
Speaking at a hearing with the Budgetary Commission of the House of Representatives, the minister said that the Attorney General's recent decision to drop the corruption charge against Kim was not final.
"There might be another development," he said when answering a House member's questions about the Attorney General's recent decision to drop the corruption charge against Kim.
Attorney General Singgih said last week that the investigation on Kim's possible involvement in the issuance of forged export documents had been dropped due to the absence of adequate evidence that Kim had inflicted a loss to the state.
Kim was charged with issuing counterfeit export documents to illegally obtain import duty and value-added tax rebates from the Export Service Facilitating Agency and to obtain subsidized export credits from Bank Indonesia, the central bank.
The minister told yesterday's hearing that he has assigned three top officials, Director General for Customs and Excise Sahardjo, Tax Director General Fuad Bawazier and Director General for Financial Institutions Bambang Subianto, to help the Attorney General investigate Kim's possible involvement in bank or export frauds.
Mar'ie said that the Ministry of Finance issued at least five permits per week to the police or the Attorney General's Office to investigate bank accounts of the people accused of bank frauds.
"I am unable to explicitly disclose every case," the minister said when he was questioned by Sri Bintang Pamungkas of the United Development Party if the accounts of businessmen Robby Tjahjadi and Lili Sumantri were also investigated.
Robby, the founder of the debt ridden Kanindotex and Sumantri, a former banker, were recently reported to have incurred huge bad debts at state-owned banks. (hen)