President responsible for Banpres: Moerdiono
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Any irregularities in the use of non-budgetary Presidential Aid Fund (Banpres) were the sole responsibility of the president, former minister/state secretary Moerdiono said Tuesday.
Moerdiono, who served as minister/state secretary for 10 years during the Soeharto regime, said the funds were collected and used only with the president's approval.
"The president is the one who decides on fund collection or use, while the minister/state secretary concentrates on the administrative work only," he told a small team of the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I in charge of security and foreign affairs.
Moerdiono and another minister/state secretary, Muladi, were summoned by the House on Tuesday to shed light on the collection and disbursement mechanism of Banpres.
Ali Rachman and Abdul Mudjid Manan, two ministers/state secretaries during former president Abdurrahman Wahid's short stint, are to be summoned later this week.
Moerdiono maintained Tuesday that the collection and disbursement of Banpres was the prerogative of the president.
"The minister/state secretary does not have any authority over the fund," he insisted.
The Banpres issue came to the fore after President Megawati Soekarnoputri donated Rp 30 billion to the Indonesian Military (TNI) and police in February for the upgrade of complexes housing low-ranking personnel, without revealing the source of the funds.
As the 2002 state budget did not allocate any cash for the rehabilitation work, House legislators started questioning the assistance. Speculation is rife that Megawati's aides had illegally collected the funds to buy the military and police's support in the 2004 election.
Cabinet/State Secretary Bambang Kesowo belatedly told the House Commission I in May that the money was taken from Banpres, a fund established by former dictator Soeharto in 1985.
Bambang's explanation, however, failed to silence Megawati's critics. In fact, tens of inter-faction legislators filed a petition to House leaders to force Megawati to explain the source of the fund before the lawmakers.
Analysts suggested that the move was designed to stop Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) from demanding the establishment of a special House committee to investigate its speaker, Akbar Tandjung, a suspect in a Rp 40 billion financial scandal involving the National Bureau of Logistics (Bulog).
One legislator, who declined to be named, said Tuesday that the Banpres issue was being exploited by the House to kick Bambang out of Megawati's cabinet.
Moerdiono also said the fund had between Rp 500 billion and Rp 550 billion and US$10 million and $11 million when he left office in 1998, but according to Bambang, Megawati inherited only Rp 401.6 billion and $10.6 million from her predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid.
After hearing Moerdiono's testimony, team members brushed aside any possibility of summoning President Megawati, saying that the move would go beyond its authority.
"We will not go that far, but based on Moerdiono's statement people could figure out who is to blame for irregularities in the fund," said team secretary Heppy Bone Zulkarnaen of Golkar.
He also refused to say whether Moerdiono's explanation implied that Megawati was to be held responsible for irregularities in Banpres, saying: "There are always possibilities that those who run the administration are not honest in their work," he said.
Another team member, Zulvan Lindan of PDI Perjuangan, said that Megawati learned about the fund from Bambang.
"The purpose is not to summon the president as Bambang may have been the one who informed the president about the existence of the fund," he said.