Prosecutors drop graft charges against Solok businessman

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb and Ruslan, The Jakarta Post/Padang/Poso

The West Sumatra Prosecutor's Office announced on Tuesday that it had dropped a corruption charge against a businessman in Solok municipality, saying there is not enough evidence to name him a suspect.

Prosecutor's office chief Antasari Azhar said the businessman, president director of contractor PT Baretta Muda Pratama, Hariadi, would now be called upon as a witness in the Rp 1.3 billion (US$144,444) corruption case, which allegedly involves Solok Mayor Yumler Lahar.

Antasari said that prosecutors had investigated an alleged mark up in the construction of a Rp 1.3 billion truck terminal in the municipality.

However, no evidence was found to confirm that Hariadi had marked up the cost of the terminal's construction.

Ade Waldemar, Hariadi's lawyer, said that the Solok municipal administration had proposed in 1995 that PT Baretta Muda Pratama build the truck terminal, which it had agreed to.

The memorandum of understanding for the project assigned the company as investor and contractor, and Solok municipal administration as land owner and regulator of the terminal.

It was also agreed that the municipal administration -- of which Matsuardi Anang was mayor at that time -- would hand over 12,000 hectares of land to the contractor.

The truck terminal would take up 3,250 square meters of land, while the remaining 9,500 square meters would be possessed by the company as compensation for the amount of money it had invested in the project.

However, a few months later, the project was halted due to local councillors' objections to the deal.

In 2001, the company filed a lawsuit, demanding 2.1 million from the Solok municipal administration as compensation for the financial losses it had suffered.

The administration, under Mayor Yumler Lahar, approved compensation of Rp 1.3 billion, which was taken from the 2002 municipal budget.

Prosecutors investigated the case after reports of an alleged mark up in the project by Hariadi, who was named a suspect in July this year.

Meanwhile, prosecutors are now focusing their investigation on the Solok mayor, who allegedly violated budget disbursement procedures in the case.

Separately, in Poso, Central Sulawesi Police detained Anwar M. Ali, a former senior official of the regency's social office for alleged graft worth Rp 1 billion (US$111,111).

Comr. Arif Rachim, acting chief of detectives of the Central Sulawesi Police, said the official had been named a suspect along with two other government officials, Elfies Lembah and Jakobus Lumansik.

The three should have distributed Rp 2.2 billion in state funds to refugees in Poso in August this year, but had only disbursed Rp 532 million. Police charged them with embezzling the remaining Rp 1.6 billion.