Leonardi Claims He Was Trapped into Signing Navayo Contract in Satellite Corruption Case

Former Head of the Defence Facilities Agency at the Ministry of Defence, Rear Admiral TNI (Ret.) Leonardi, claims he was trapped into signing a contract with Navayo International AG related to the procurement of a satellite in the 123 degrees East longitude orbital slot.

This was stated during the trial examining former Director General of Defence Planning (Renhan) Muhammad Syaugi at the High Military Court II in Jakarta on Tuesday (5/5).

In the trial, Leonardi, as the committing officer (PPK), felt deceived because he was not informed that the project budget, initially included in the Budget Implementation List (DIPA) in 2016, was subsequently self-blocked by witness Syaugi.

“Why did the witness submit a self-blocking letter to the Ministry of Finance that was so crucial and impacted the programme, without copying it to me?” Leonardi said to Syaugi.

Meanwhile, Syaugi assessed that he had no obligation to report and believed Leonardi was aware of the self-blocking through staff and subordinates in the Renhan division.

“That is not true, so the question should be directed to the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence. The one who determines the self-blocking. So the question is not appropriate to ask me. Why did I do the self-blocking?” Syaugi replied.

Syaugi admitted that he received instructions from the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence in 2016, Widodo, to prepare a self-blocking letter and send it to the Ministry of Finance. He considered that no copy was needed to the defendant because it was deemed in accordance with procedure.

“If procurement is to proceed, the study must be clear, supporting data must be available, and it must be reviewed by BPKP. At that time, there was none, so the budget was blocked,” he said.

He stated that the reason for returning the budget to the state was due to Presidential Instruction Number 8 of 2016 regarding financial savings. Syaugi said that regulation was the basis for self-blocking the budget item for the 123 BT orbital slot satellite procurement.

“We were told to save 7.9 trillion. The contents are up to us which ones to cut,” said Syaugi.

Nevertheless, Leonardi assessed that the self-blocking should have been aimed at preventing the use of funds for unproductive goods expenditure to achieve savings.

“The savings target should be on unproductive goods expenditure such as official travel, meeting packages, team honoraria, and non-urgent office building construction, not satellites,” he said.

Meanwhile, former Director General of Defence Forces (Kuathan) Major General TNI (Ret.) Bambang Hartawan denied ever instructing witness Jon Kennedy Ginting to sign a Certificate of Performance (CoP) leading to an invoice for the procurement of goods from Navayo supervisor.

The Navayo CoP document is an agreement required to issue an invoice or billing letter from Navayo. He also stated that it was impossible to provide feasibility study data for the satellite procurement project in one month.

“Regarding supporting data, in that short time we did not have a budget to conduct a feasibility study. For a programme of that size, we certainly need consultants, experts, and so on. That requires costs, where does the budget come from?” he said.

On the same occasion, defendant Thomas Anthony Van Der Heyden emphasised that he was only involved in technical aspects and as a liaison between the Ministry of Defence and suppliers.

“I work on technical aspects and act as an intermediary between the Ministry of Defence and the suppliers. I was invited based on needs when there are technical questions,” he said.

He also claimed not to be involved in strategic discussion meetings, including those related to budgets or programme management. Thomas added that his involvement was limited and not part of the main project decision-making structure.

“I do not have complete information about all the meetings that took place, except when I am invited,” he said.

In the indictment letter, the prosecutor stated that the project continued to run since 2015 even though it did not have budget allocation in the Budget Implementation List (DIPA).

Leonardi is said to have signed the satellite procurement contract with Airbus Defence and Space for US$495 million. This action is considered to violate regulations because it was done without the availability of state budget.

The prosecutor stated that the project then became problematic because the government was deemed not to fulfil payment obligations. The failure to pay these obligations led Gabor to file an international arbitration lawsuit at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

The arbitration ruling resulted in a payment obligation for the state of US$20,901,209.9 plus interest of US$483,642.74. Converted to rupiah based on the December 2021 exchange rate, the state loss amounts to Rp306 billion.