Prosecutors fail to get more info from Habibie

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

State prosecutors have wasted two important days in their efforts to unveil the alleged misuse of Rp 40 billion in State Logistics Agency (Bulog) funds involving former state secretary Akbar Tandjung as they failed to expose the underlying political links between key witness former president B.J. Habibie and the suspect.

The Attorney General's Office prosecutors completed their questioning of Habibie on Tuesday and will now examine his accounts.

The office spokesman Barman Zahir told reporters after the four-hour questioning session on Tuesday that the 10 questions posed to Habibie were aimed only at verifying his answers given during Monday's session.

"The investigators were satisfied with the questioning of Habibie," Barman said.

In the questioning, Habibie confirmed that the government's project to disburse food for the poor in 1999, which used the Bulog funds, was part of the social safety net program.

Lawyer Yan Djuanda Saputra told reporters that Akbar was instructed to use the funds properly in accordance with existing regulations.

Such regulations related to the project, the investigators revealed, included Presidential Decree No. 190/1998 on the organizing of a task force to implement the social safety net program and Law No. 20/1997 on non-taxable state revenue.

The presidential decree delegates the authority to organize the programs to the minister of finance and the coordinating minister for people's welfare and poverty eradication without involving the Akbar's office of the cabinet secretary.

However, the investigators failed to pursue the fact that Habibie violated his own decree by assigning Akbar to manage the project instead of the related ministers who were also in attendance in the Feb. 10, 1999 meeting when the former president outlined the policy.

The alleged scam came months before the general election, in which the Akbar-led Golkar party nominated Habibie for president.

Habibie claimed that he never received a report on the project and insisted that Akbar submit one. However, Yan Djuanda said, Habibie did not consider that Akbar had done anything wrong in running the project.

The investigators have named Akbar, who is the current speaker of House of Representatives, as a suspect in the case, after investigators found no proof of such a food distribution project which was supposedly carried out in five provinces in Java.

Akbar's appointees to run the project: Raudlatul Jannah Foundation chairman Dadang Sukandar and his contractor Winfried Simatupang have also been named suspects.

Investigators also questioned Dadang and Winfried on Tuesday.