Politicians queried over backing for PT QSAR
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Amid public demand for moral accountability, politicians have raised eyebrows for apparent moves to slow legal proceedings against PT Qurnia Subur Alam Raya (QSAR), a profit sharing agribusiness company which collapsed recently.
Achmad Ali, a senior lecturer at Hanasuddin University, expressed his suspicions why some of the country's leading politicians had expressed support for the company's executives, who are now being detained at the Sukabumi Police precinct, West Java.
"If we are adamant about upholding the law, the investigation should proceed.
"The police have charged QSAR's executives with violating the Criminal Code and the banking law by embezzling public funds. So it'd be better for us to let the investigation continue until the court decides whether or not the charges are valid," said Achmad, one of 21 people elected to the National Commission on Human Rights.
Fraud carries a four-year sentence according to the Criminal Code, while the bank law violation carries a maximum penalty of fie years in jail.
People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais was the latest among public figures to join the polemic over whether QSAR has committed any crime.
Amien, who chairs National Mandate Party (PAN), suggested on Monday that police stop efforts to bring the company's executives to court although he acknowledged that Ramli Araby, QSAR president director and others in the company's top management, had misused Rp 500 billion in public funds raised from 6,800 investors.
"I know that QSAR's leaders have manipulated the investors' fund, but I think it would be better for the police to freeze the company's accounts to repay the investors," Amien said.
Amien further expressed his skepticism that law enforcers would proceed with the investigation in line with the public's expectations.
"I'm not personally referring to Pak Amien Rais, but perhaps politicians, as well as other state officials, are trying to defend QSAR because they wish to protect the funds they have invested in the company," Achmad said.
Since the firm collapsed, many odd stories have circulated, including rumors about Ramli's links to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which the Aceh native businessman has denied.
Meanwhile, some people in Sukabumi said that Ramli's success could not be separated from his good relationship with the local authorities. Ramli helped the local government build a private university, a housing complex for local administration officials in Pelabuhan Ratu, and a big Mosque in Sasagaran village.
National figures, including Vice President Hamzah Haz, deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Tosari Widjaja, former vice president Try Sutrisno, are among some of the prominent personalities Ramli claims had visited the company and gave it moral support.
Tosari, also a legislator of the National Development Party (PPP), had even signed the inscription stone marking the start of development of Al Abror Mosque at Sasagaran village built by QSAR, some 10 kilometers from Kadudampit village, in January 2001.
Other signatories were Sukabumi regent Maman Sulaeman and Ramli himself.
When Ramli was detained at Sukabumi Police detention center last Friday, a group of PAN members staged a rally in front of the police station, asking for fair treatment for him.
Hamzah Haz, also from the PPP, even proposed a takeover by the government on the grounds that the company was "a legitimate business that needed the government's help."