Prosecutor target KPUD suppliers
Prosecutor target KPUD suppliers
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Six of nine companies offered contracts by the Jakarta Elections
Commission (KPUD) in 2004 supplied fictitious addresses, making
it difficult for prosecutors investigating alleged graft in the
commission to track down the owners.
"We found six suppliers using fictitious addresses. However,
we will ask KPUD staff to provide the owners' addresses,"
chairman of the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office investigation team
Syaeful Taher told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The Prosecutor's Office has so far detained three suspects in
the alleged embezzlement of Rp 13 billion in the 2004 elections.
The three suspects are KPUD chairman Muhammad Taufik, KPUD
member A. Riza Patria and KPUD treasurer Neneng Euis Palupi.
Taufik is being held in the South Jakarta Prosecutor's Office
detention center, Neneng in the Pondok Bambu Women's Penitentiary
in East Jakarta and Riza in Selemba Penitentiary, Central
Jakarta.
Syaeful said the elections body, for example, had used a
company that shut down in 2003 as one of its suppliers.
The owner of one of the suppliers, CV Beta Lestari Prima,
claimed the company name had been used by a friend of Taufik's to
bid in the KPUD tender, and won, Syaeful said.
He said based on information provided by several KPUD staff
members, who had been interrogated by prosecutors, the tenders
for all 15 electoral goods and services had not been properly
carried out.
Syaeful said the tender processes were carried out by Taufik
and other KPUD members, while KPUD staff members had only been
asked to sign documents.
Furthermore, he claimed many procurement documents had been
made as late as January 2005.
"The KPUD issued false documents when the Supreme Audit Agency
(BPK) audited the institution," he added.
The investigation into alleged corruption in the KPUD is based
on reports made by City Council Commission A for legal and
administrative affairs, which found a number of irregularities in
goods and services procurements.
Commission A, which investigated the alleged misuse of funds
by KPU members during the elections, said earlier that it had
found irregularities resulting in state losses amounting to Rp 13
billion.
It alleged that the poll commission had failed to pay Rp 4.2
billion in personnel income and value-added taxes.
It also discovered questionable tenders and an alleged markup
in the purchase of 180,000 vests for Rp 12 billion (or Rp 66,000
each). The price was far higher than the market price of Rp
25,000 per vest, the commission said.
The commission has also been accused of marking up the rent on
three houses it uses for offices in Kepulauan Seribu regency, as
it apparently only paid Rp 25 million a year to the owners of the
houses, not the Rp 170 million for the three houses that it
reported.