Rp 820 billion in irregularities found

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has found financial irregularities worth about Rp 820 billion (US$97.62 million) in the selected city administration offices and city-owned companies (BUMD), but the City Audit Agency (Bawasda) seems to be taking the news lightly.

Bawasda's head Firman Hutajulu claimed that his office had found no indications of corruption related to the 138 BPK findings at four city-owned enterprises and eight institutions in the city administration.

"Don't think that the findings are always an indication of corruption ... So far, we've only found that there were mistakes in procedures and administrative things," Firman told the press after meeting with Governor Sutiyoso on Friday.

Firman, however, stressed that his office would make a further investigation into BPK's findings, case-by-case, to see who should take responsibility for each of the irregularities involving taxpayer money.

In its report to the House of Representatives's Commission II for legal and home affairs in February, BPK said there were 79 irregularities in the eight institutions worth Rp 140.26 billion and 59 findings at four city companies worth Rp 678 billion.

The findings were based on the BPK's audits of routine and development expenses from the 2001 and 2002 City Budgets at the eight institutions and the 2001 and 2002 books of the four city- owned companies.

The eight institutions comprised the Central Jakarta and the North Jakarta mayoralties, the city transportation agency, the city training office, the city tourism agency, the city population and civil registration agency, the city parks agency and a number of religion and education offices.

While the four city-owned companies audited were bank PT Bank DKI, PT Food Station Tjipinang Jaya (known as the Cipinang rice market), property company PT Jakarta Propertindo and the Ragunan Zoo.

There were no details given about the amount of money allegedly misappropriated from each institution or company.

In his argument that the irregularities were only administrative mistakes, Firman cited a case in the population and civil registration agency on the purchase of computers for an on-line system from his office to each subdistrict in the city.

He said that all the computers had been purchased and the specification of the products had met the requirements.

"The problem was that the computers had not been installed. The project leader should be responsible for the sluggish process of computer installment," he said.

According to Firman, the head of each working unit like the head of agencies and the head of bureaus should not be held responsible for the irregularities made by project leaders, whose letter of appointment was directly signed by the governor.

But he said that starting this year, the head of each working unit should also be responsible for any project in the working unit.

Recent reports said that there were a number of corruption cases allegedly involving city officials. However, the settlement of most of them remained unclear. Almost none of them went to court. In a few cases, several low-ranking officials received administrative sanctions, but their supervisors were untouched.