South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office Raids Education Agency, Seizes Documents on Rp18 Billion Digital Library Project

A team of Special Crime (Pidsus) investigators from the South Sulawesi High Prosecutor’s Office raided the Office of the South Sulawesi Provincial Education Agency on Wednesday (17/6) in a search operation linked to alleged corruption in the Digital Library (Bookless Library) Procurement project for the 2022 Fiscal Year. The search, which began at 10:30 Wita on Jalan Perintis Kemerdekaan, Tamalanrea District, Makassar, targeted the Senior High School (SMA) Division office. This firm action marks a new chapter in the investigation of a case that has drawn public attention due to the large budget allocated for the bookless library programme. The Assistant for Special Crimes (Aspidsus) of the South Sulawesi High Prosecutor’s Office, Rachmat Supriady, personally led the operation accompanied by his investigators. From the search, the team successfully secured a number of key documents strongly suspected of providing clues to the flow of funds and the execution of the problematic project. “We secured planning documents, procurement contracts, financial documents including SP2D, and expenditure accountability letters. We will examine all of them to shed full light on this case,” Rachmat Supriady told journalists after the search. He stressed that the search and seizure were purely for evidentiary purposes. “We work professionally and transparently. This is part of the effort to collect evidence so that the case can be uncovered comprehensively in accordance with applicable law,” he added. Currently, the investigation team is continuing to probe the roles of the parties involved, scrutinise all obtained documents, and trace the budget flows suspected of irregularities.