PLN corruption case may be dropped: Hendarman

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Prosecutors may have to drop an investigation into alleged graft in state electricity company PLN in a case that some said could involve a member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Cabinet.

Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes Hendarman Supandji said that his team was now reviewing the case to see whether it should proceed with the investigation or not after the government issued a certificate stating that no state losses had resulted from the alleged graft.

"The Attorney General handed me a certificate from the government stating that no losses had been inflicted on the state in this case as the distribution of the bonus was agreed to by the shareholders meeting," Hendarman told lawmakers during a hearing with the House of Representatives' legal affairs commission.

The PLN case centered on the distribution of total bonuses worth some Rp 4.3 billion (US$430,000) to the members of the boards of directors and commissioners in 2003, when the company suffered a loss of about Rp 3 billion.

The PLN labor union lambasted the bonus policy, accusing PLN's top management of corruption and of violating Law No. 19/2003 on state-owned enterprises, which bans the boards of state firms from distributing bonuses in circumstances where their companies are not in profit.

Top PLN officials have denied the accusations, saying that the policy was approved by the shareholders.

Groups of students have staged street rallies amid signs that the government was slowing down the investigation into the alleged graft case.

Hendarman had previously told the press that his prosecutors had already identified three PLN officials as potential suspects in the case. But he never announced their names.

Hendarman said on Thursday he had not announced their names as the Attorney General's Office had to be very careful in disclosing the names of suspects.

He also said that another reason that had prompted him to review the case was the fact that even some members of the PLN labor union believed that the bonus policy was lawful and was not tainted by corruption as it had been approved by the shareholders.

They argued that since PLN is a limited liability company, the case needed to be dealt with using the Limited Liability Companies Law (No. 1/1995), instead of the State Enterprises Law.

However, the chairman of PLN labor union, Ahmad Darjoko, said he believed that political pressure had been brought to bear in this case as the AGO had decided not to announce the names of the suspects just a few weeks after Hendarman promised to do so.