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/