KPK told to speed up KPU graft probe
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A coalition of non-governmental organizations questioned Monday the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) commitment to seriously investigate alleged corruption by the General Elections Commission (KPU) in the procurement of materials for the April 5 legislative election.
Hermawanto, the coalition's spokesman, said the group demanded greater commitment from the commission as it had yet to announce their stance over the issue despite their promise to the coalition on Aug. 11.
The coalition consists of the Independent Committee for Election Monitoring (KIPP), the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency, the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), Indonesia Procurement Watch (IPW) and the Indonesian Forum for Parliamentary Concern (Formappi).
According to Hermawanto, KPK said that the probe had been postponed due to the presidential election.
"The case must not be closed. Instead it must be completed soon," he said.
Hermawanto also said that KPK earlier claimed that they had already asked the State Audit Body (BPK) to do an audit of the KPU's accounts.
"We've heard that BPK completed the audit in September, so why didn't the KPK announce the result?" he said.
Junino Yahya, the newly installed deputy chairman of internal monitoring and public complaints, said that the KPK had yet to obtain the results from BPK.
"We must respect the code of ethics between state institutions, meaning we could not order BPK to submit their audit result. We can only wait," he told the coalition.
Junino added that the commission had yet to start probing the alleged graft case because they had to collect more data.
Hermawanto said that they had a number of reports, which could be used by KPK to probe the case.
The coalition accused the KPU of involvement in a markup over the procurement of election materials that inflicted some Rp 375 billion (US$41.6 million) in losses on the state.
It alleged that the KPU spent Rp 204.62 billion, or a 616 percent increase on its original budget of Rp 28.5 billion, on distribution of the materials. State losses were estimated at Rp 176.04 billion.
The elections commission incurred Rp 56.46 billion in state losses over the procurement of ballot papers, following its decision to increase the number of registered voters from 143.1 million to 147.6 million, and to raise the number of reserve ballots from 2.5 percent to 10 percent.
The law on legislative elections set the figure at 2.5 percent.
KPU has said that the allegation was unsubstantiated. KPU's decision to hike the legislative election budget was a consequence of having such a short time in which to prepare for the election, it said.