Probosutedjo a suspect over mark up loan
JAKARTA (JP): Another blow hit former president Soeharto's family on Monday when his younger half-brother, magnate Probosutedjo was named a suspect over a mark up loan obtained from the government's reforestation fund.
"There was some Rp 49 billion (more than US$5 million) marking up of the government equity and reforestation fund to sustain a timber estate in South Kalimantan," spokesman to the Attorney General's Office Muljohardjo told a media conference.
Muljohardjo explained that prosecutors found timber company PT Menara Hutan Buana, with Probosutedjo as its president, had given differing data on the area of their estates compared to survey reports by the Coordinating Body for Survey and National Charting Development Board.
PT Menara had claimed managing a 71,042 hectare estate in order to apply for a Rp 144 billion soft loan which it received in 1994, while the board's survey from 1994/1995 to 1997/1998 period revealed that the company only sustained a 41,212 hectare estate.
According to assessments made by the Ministry of Forestry and Plantation, the Development and Finance Control Agency (BPKP) and state-owned forestry company PT Inhutani, PT Menara only owes Rp 95.4 billion in loans.
The case is one of a number of corruption cases reported by the forestry ministry as part of its efforts to recover massive amounts of misused reforestation funds provided to forest concessionaires for sustaining the estates.
Probosutedjo denied the corruption allegation in December after he was questioned over the case, saying that he had all the evidence to prove the validity of PT Menara's data in its proposal for the soft loan.
Earlier on Monday, state prosecutors announced that Soeharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardijanti Hastuti Rukmana, or Tutut, is banned from traveling overseas. The one-year ban took effect on Saturday.
The ban came a day after she was named a suspect in a graft concerning a $306 million government project to construct a 320 kilometer long fuel pipeline in Java, which was conducted by Tutut's company PT Triharsa Bimanusa Tunggal.
Tutut was initially scheduled to be questioned at the Attorney General's Office on Monday, but it was later rearranged to Tuesday due to overlapping summonses with different dates for the questioning.
Spokesman Muljohardjo also said that the authorities have placed a travel ban over Erry Putra Oudang, a nephew of former First Lady Tien Soeharto. The travel ban, was imposed starting Nov. 24, as he was named a suspect in the $113 million marking up of the Balongan oil refinery project in Indramayu, West Java, in 1989 and 1990.
Erry, together with Hardijanti's younger brother Sigit Hardjojudanto and businessman Bing Kintamani, allegedly helped British-based company Foster Wheeler, get the project.
Erry was believed to have received $60 million or four percent of the price offered by the company.
Probosutedjo, Tutut and Erry added the number of Soeharto's family members who have so far been netted for crimes. Soeharto himself is a defendant for a $571 million of corruption, while his youngest son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra was convicted in a $8.07 million graft and is still on the run; and youngest daughter Siti Hutami Endang Adiningsih, was declared guilty for failing to report the loss of a firearm she owned. The other sibling, Bambang Trihatmodjo, was grilled by police earlier this month over the acquisition of assets of textile company Kanindotex. (bby/01)