Prosecutor's office probes cases of corruption

Prosecutor's office probes cases of corruption

JAKARTA (JP): The Supreme Court has been investigating 18
cases of corruption, including some in state banks, which were
recently discovered by the Government Audit Agency (BPKP), Chief
Justice Singgih said yesterday.

The cases are among 223 cases that the agency has discovered
over the past five years, and which have caused losses to the
state of hundreds of billions of rupiah.

Singgih stressed that not all of the cases uncovered by the
agency involved corruption. Many of them were "administrative" in
nature and were civil matters which could be dealt with by the
lower courts or by Bank Indonesia (the central bank).

"The 18 cases are handled by the prosecutor's office," he told
journalists after a meeting with President Soeharto at the Bina
Graha presidential office.

Earlier this month, BPKP chairman Soedarjono told the House of
Representatives that most of the corruption cases had been
brought to court but only 44 of them had been decided.

The agency, which comes under the finance ministry, found that
the greatest number of fraud cases occurred in the banking
sector.

Singgih said that the Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo)
scandal had caused the largest loss to the state, with US$620
million going missing.

The Bapindo scandal landed businessman Eddy Tansil, the main
culprit, with 20 years in jail. Several former bank directors
have also been imprisoned for their role in the affair.

Singgih said that most corruption cases concerned banking and
taxation fraud. "Weak supervision is to blame for the high
incidence of corruption in state banks," he said.

Slack supervision had given rise to widespread violations of
banking rules, including violations of the lending limit, and
collusion between officials such as occurred in the Bapindo
scandal, he said.

Supervision

"Investigations into the Bapindo scandal by the attorney
general's office and BPKP have shown how weak supervision in the
bank was," he said.

The issuance of credit from Bapindo to Eddy Tansil was the
result of collusion between bank officials and Eddy, the owner of
the Golden Key Group.

Singgih said that corruption cases would be brought to court
but that civil cases involving banks might be transferred to Bank
Indonesia for determination.

He quoted President Soeharto as saying that supervision within
government agencies should be tightened in order to minimize
corruption and abuses of power.

The chief justice was reporting to President Soeharto on the
Supreme Court's plan to hold a coordinating meeting with
inspector generals from all ministries.

The planned meeting is to discuss various efforts to combat
corruption and leakages of state funds. (pan)