Officials implicated in brothel land scam
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Councillors demanded on Tuesday that a transparent investigation be conducted by the City Inspectorate into alleged graft concerning the acquisition of 10.4 hectares of land in the former Kramat Tunggak red-light district in North Jakarta, worth about Rp 83 billion (US$8.3 million).
Councillor Gatot Setiabudi of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle questioned the amount of money paid to brothel owners, who apparently did not possess any ownership documents for land and buildings.
"They (the brothel owners) received 90 percent of the market price for their land and buildings. According to regulations, since they only managed the land without documents, they should have only received 25 percent of the market price," Gatot said.
Furthermore, he said the city administration did not need to acquire the land because it had been appropriated by former governor Ali Sadikin when it was transformed into a rehabilitation center for prostitutes in 1970.
The complex, which was officially closed in December 1999, will be turned into an Islamic center.
Gatot suspects that the acquisition, which was conducted by a team of nine city officials, includes public and social facilities in the brothel complex.
An official residence for a medical doctor, the roads and parks in the complex were reportedly acquired by the team when the administration commenced development of the Islamic center on the land last month.
The market price is Rp 1 million per square meter for the land and Rp 600,000 for the buildings. There were about 200 pimps who owned some 600 brothels in the complex.
Separately, an official at the City Inspectorate, Syahrul Effendy, admitted that the inspectorate was investigating the alleged land scam.
A source said that three officials, who were on the team of nine assigned to the land acquisition, had been questioned by the inspectorate.
One of them is an official at the City Social Welfare Agency while the other two are from the municipality of North Jakarta.
Meanwhile, North Jakarta Mayor Soebagyo said on Tuesday that he was ready to be questioned by the inspectorate about the land acquisition.
He admitted that the pimps, whose land was appropriated, did not have ownership documents. But he said the pimps had purchased the land from officials at the City Social Welfare Agency.
The City Inspectorate has investigated a number of corruption cases allegedly conducted by city officials, including the misappropriation of Civil Servants Corps funds and funds that financed the foreign trips of some officials and councillors -- known as Ancolgate.
To date, none of the investigations have resulted in legal prosecution.