KPK told to speed up KPU graft probe
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.