Rp 40b 'food distribution' was Habibie's, says Akbar

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Graft suspect Akbar Tandjung said on Monday that the Rp 40 billion in funds channeled to the Raudlatul Jannah Foundation were not social safety net (JPS) program funds, but were special emergency program funds specially earmarked for areas not covered by the JPS program.

Emerging from seven hours of questioning, Akbar, who is also House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker, said it was former president B.J. Habibie who had decided to allocate the Rp 40 billion for the special emergency program.

"The food distribution program (carried out by Raudlatul Jannah Foundation) was a special emergency program that was not related to the social safety net program," Akbar said at the Attorney General's Office after his second questioning as a suspect on Monday.

The Attorney General's Office declared Akbar, who is also the chairman of Golkar Party, a suspect in a Rp 54.6 billion financial scandal involving the State Logistics Agency (Bulog). He was questioned for the first time as a suspect on Tuesday Feb. 5.

Many people believe that the money was used by Golkar to finance its campaign in the 1999 general election.

Akbar reiterated on Monday that he had already made a verbal report to Habibie before he resigned from his post as minister/state secretary on May 10, 1999, and that he could not submit a written report because the project, which started in March, was still ongoing and ended in September 1999.

"I resigned because as Golkar chair, I wanted to focus on the party, which was preparing for the general election. There was no official handover of my post to my successor so I don't know if there was a written report from the foundation to the office of the state secretary," Akbar said.

He said, however, that project organizer Raudlatul Jannah Foundation gave him a progress report on April 20, 1999.

He claimed that he sent staff from the office of the minister/state secretary to supervise food distribution in Jakarta and East Java. The food packages were reportedly also distributed in West Java, Yogyakarta and Central Java.

State prosecutors said earlier that they had found no evidence of food distribution in those areas.

Akbar claimed that he chose the Raudlatul Jannah Foundation and the contractor to run the project because they had experience, had long been a partner of Bulog and had a good recommendation from then coordinating minister for people's welfare and poverty eradication Haryono Suyono.

Also questioned on Monday was foundation chair Dadang Sukandar, who allegedly told state prosecutors that he had not gotten hold of data of the people receiving the food packages.

Dadang's contractor Winfried Simatupang failed to answer the summons for questioning on Monday, allegedly due to bad health.

Akbar's lawyer Ruhut Sitompul said that Monday's questioning was the last for Akbar, who had answered a total of 47 questions in the two summonses, and that his client would go on the haj pilgrimage from Feb. 14 through Feb. 24.

However, the investigators said that there was still a possibility that Akbar would be questioned again depending on the questioning of other witnesses including Habibie, who is now living in Germany. Habibe is scheduled to be questioned on Feb. 18.