RI slow to review money laundering law

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With the House of Representatives dragging its feet in amending the country's antimoney laundering law, Indonesia could slip back onto the list of countries categorized as havens for money launderers, an expert warns.

The chairman of the Financial Transaction Reports Analysis Center (PPATK), Yunus Husein, said that of the 55 laws the House was scheduled to review and amend this year -- including the antimoney laundering law -- no significant progress had been made on any of the laws.

"It is not that I am being pessimistic, but the review of the law in the House is going really slowly," Yunus said on Wednesday during a panel discussion of Law No. 15/2002 on antimoney laundering.

The amendment of the antimoney laundering law is particularly important, Yunus said, to fix the existing shortcomings in Indonesia's antimoney laundering regime and to accommodate new international standards.

The House previously amended Law No. 15/2002, along with Law No. 25/2003 -- which included the establishment of the PPATK -- in an effort to remove Indonesia from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)'s list of Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories.

The FATF, a global money laundering watchdog set up by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, removed Indonesia from the list in February this year, but will continue to monitor the country's progress on a yearly basis.

Yunus previously said the FATF could reconsider its decision to remove Indonesia from the list if the country failed to heed the task force's six follow-up recommendations, which include intensifying financial audits of small banks, improving the audit process and systems, drafting mutual legal assistance bills for money laundering suspects and prosecuting them in a timely manner, and increasing the capacity of the PPATK and widening its authority to freeze any suspicious accounts.

Yunus said his office would continue to improve its work pending the law's amendment, particularly in widening its reporting parties, which currently consist of 4,000 banks and nonbank financial institutions.

"In the future, we expect to receive reports from lawyers, public accountants, property agents and even car dealers -- just like in the United States -- to better monitor the flow of funds in the country," he said.

The PPATK has as of May 13 received 19,078 suspicious transaction reports, of which 278 of them have been followed up on by the police. Only 45 cases, however, have reached prosecutors, while the rest were set aside for lack of evidence.