Puteh to remain at the helm until declared suspect

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta

The police plan to question Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam governor Abdullah Puteh would not, for the time being, affect his status as civil emergency administrator, the government said on Sunday.

Ad interim coordinating minister for political and security affairs Hari Sabarno said on Sunday that the police would question Puteh as a witness, not as a suspect.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri would suspend the Governor and appoint another official to administer the province only if he were charged as a suspect and if there was a demand for his suspension from the provincial legislative council, Hari said.

"It's quite common for people to be questioned as witnesses," he added.

Usually a governor who was unable to perform his duties would be replaced by his deputy, the minister said. He was commenting on the recent approval by the President for the police to question Puteh in relation to graft allegations.

Puteh is said to have been involved in the markup of power generators that were purchased in 2002, a scam that allegedly defrauded the state of Rp 30 billion (US$3.3million).

Megawati's consent came just a few days after Puteh officially became the civil emergency administrator in the province on May 20 after martial law ended on May 19.

Earlier, the martial law administrators had conducted preliminary questioning of Puteh and submitted the case to the National Police and the Attorney General's office.

The National Police's director of corruption cases, Brig. Gen. Sugiri, said that Puteh was scheduled to be questioned early next week.

"I just had the President's letter (of consent for the questioning of Puteh) on my desk this morning. It's not easy to arrange the questioning of such a senior official as Puteh, but we will summon him early next week," Sugiri said on Saturday.

The allegations against Puteh are believed to have led to the assigning of a government team "to advise" the governor in administering the province under the state of civil emergency.

"To help monitor the use of funds, auditors from the State Audit Agency will also help supervise spending," Hari said.

The government has come under fire for its failure to ensure public accountability as regards the use of the funds provided for the "integrated operations" under martial law, which were supposed to have comprised military, humanitarian and law enforcement operations.

Hari said that the team of special advisors to be sent to Aceh would be briefed at his office on Tuesday and the presidential instruction to appoint the officials would be signed by Megawati "as soon as possible".