Legislators support TNI procurement contractors

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Legislators voiced their firm support on Monday for the current contracting system in the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the Ministry of Defense, a system that had in the past been instrumental in huge mark-ups of government procurement contracts.

However, the legislators said that the appointment of any contractor should be done through a transparent bidding process to get a reasonable value for all purchases.

The chairman of the House of Representatives' Commission I on defense and foreign affairs, Ibrahim Ambong, said legislators, together with the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), would continue to "actively monitor the military's procurement."

Meanwhile, commission member Effendy Choirie of the National Awakening Party (PKB) faction also supported the contracting system and called on the Ministry of Finance to help oversee the use of the money.

Many have blamed the presence of contractors as the source of mark-up practices at the TNI and other state institutions.

The military's chiefs of staff urged the government as well as the House recently to drop the contracting system so that it could purchase whatever it needed directly from suppliers.

The current contracting policy dates back to the 1970s and stipulates that all government ministries must use contractors to procure their needs.

Meanwhile, Director General of Defense Equipment Procurement at the Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. Aqlani Maza (not Aqlani Masa as reported earlier), revealed that the massive corruption in the procurement of military equipment in the past was due to the presence of "some contractors," connected to former president Soeharto.

He argued that the mark-ups in the past were not the result of the system but more of the abuses by people allowed in the system.

He, therefore, defended the presence of contractors in military procurement system, saying that "we need them because the TNI does not have enough money to pay in cash."

According to Aqlani, if the government insisted upon stopping corruption, the government first must know exactly the market prices of goods and services that it wanted to purchase.

"If the government knows the market prices, the contractors will have to think twice about their bid price on a project," he said.

In the future, Aqlani suggested that the government pursue a government-to-government approach in dealing with purchases of military equipment and weaponry.

"I'm sure that such a G-to-G approach will curb mark up practices," Aqlani said.