Prosecutor's office probes bank corruption scam

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office is investigating a new corruption case involving nearly Rp 2 billion which allegedly involved two top officials of city-owned Bank DKI, a former employee of the bank said on Wednesday.

The employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the prosecutor's office summoned nine employees of the bank to testify against the bank's incumbent president Maman Soelasman and director of general affairs Djunaedy Albaghdady.

The personnel handed over accounting ledgers and used withdrawal forms as evidence that Maman and Djunaedy withdrew office up to about Rp 1 billion each for personal expenses over the past four months.

"Maman and Djunaedy at times withdrew up to Rp 50 million for an office meeting that cost no more than Rp 2 million. Bank slips and signatures on the ledgers are now being kept as evidence at the prosecutor's office," the employee said.

The nine employees summoned to give statements at the prosecutor's office included Carolina Nursaid, head of the bank's secretariat and general affairs bureau; Yenita Elsa, head of the bank's secretariat and general affairs division, and Patra Kadri, a staffer of the bank's general affairs section.

"I have no idea if the central bank is aware of this. If it is, it has made a mistake in hiding this information," the executive said.

"This proves that when the central bank, the city administration and the Ministry of Home Affairs made a recent statement through the local media that both Maman's and Djunaedy's personal records were absolutely clean, it was a lie."

Apart from this case, Djunaedy is also one of three people currently undergoing investigation at the prosecutor's office for saddling the bank with Rp 172 billion in bad credits.

The other two, namely former bank president Soeharto and former marketing director Bassar Soetardjo, were replaced in January by Maman and Siti Aisyah Margareth Rose Harahap respectively.

Siti was fired on May 7 by Governor Sutiyoso on grounds of using a fake university degree to apply for the job.

Siti, who claims the allegation is a lie, said it was a ploy by the administration to stop her from revealing data, which she gathered in her four-month tenure as director, on corrupt high- ranking officials in the administration and Bank DKI. (ylt)