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)