Police unable to handle graft case
Police unable to handle graft case
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Police managed to recover only Rp 139.7 billion out of Rp 8
trillion (US$889 million) lost to corruption over the past three
years, said a police officer on Friday.
The National Police Detectives' chief, Comr. Gen. Suyitno
Landung, said police had finished investigating 233 out of 662
cases probed in the past three years, while the others were still
being investigated.
Suyitno's statement confirmed the public perception that the
police are incapable of eradicating rampant corruption in the
country.
It also came just one day after Transparency International
Indonesia (TI Indonesia) issued the findings of an investigation
it conducted that suggest the police are one of the most corrupt
institutions in the country.
Suyitno said the police were currently focusing on alleged mark-ups
by the Texas-based Karaha Bodas Company, price mark-up by Nangroe
Aceh Darussalam Governor Abdullah Puteh in the purchase of
electricity generators, and a graft case involving Bank
Swansaridno.
The state is said to have lost Rp 30 billion as a result of
the alleged price mark-ups by Puteh and Rp 60 billion in the Bank
Swansarindo case.
It was not clear if the Account No. 502 case, which involves
Rp 20.9 trillion of Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI)
funds and the Rp 900 billion National Logistics Agency (Bulog)
case were among the cases the police had completed investigating.
The police had initially named several former high-ranking
officers of the now-defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency
(IBRA) as suspects, but later denied ever naming anyone as a
suspect.
In the Bulog fiasco, the police detained seven suspects in
2003, but were forced to release them in 2004 due to a failure to
submit sufficient evidence to the prosecutor's office.
Fraud squad director, Brig. Gen. Indarto, added that currently
there were more than 115 legislative council members from 16
provinces in Indonesia who were implicated in corruption cases.
The 16 provinces were North Sumatra, South Sumatra, West
Sumatra, South Sulawesi, Bali, Nangroe Aceh Darussalam, South
Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Papua, Central
Java, East Nusa Tenggara, Jambi, Jakarta, Bengkulu and Riau.
The TI Indonesia corruption barometer report also said on
Thursday that the House of Representatives and political parties
were the most corrupt institutions in the country, followed by
the customs and excise office, the judiciary, the police and the
tax service.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who made corruption one of
his main campaign issues during the presidential election, has
vowed to himself lead the country's fight against corruption.
On Thursday, Susilo officially launched a reinvigorated
national anticorruption drive, and issued Presidential
Instruction No. 5/2004 requiring, among other things, all state
officials to report their wealth declarations to the Corruption
Eradication Commission (KPK) as expeditiously as possible/