Special team set to probe graft case

JAKARTA: The city council agreed on Wednesday to establish a special committee to probe an alleged graft surrounding the acquisition of 10.4 hectares of land in the former red-light district of Kramat Tunggak in North Jakarta.

A councillor from Commission C for budgetary matters, Anna Rudhiantina, said the council had yet to decide when the special committee would start its investigation.

The city administration allocated Rp 83 billion for land acquisition as part of the project to convert the former prostitution site, closed in Dec.1999, into an Islamic center. It has been alleged that the funds were misused.

While the outcome of the special committee's investigation remains to be seen, the establishment of the committee will definitely require some expenditure to meet the team's costs.

The committee's activities would be financed from the remainder of the Rp 5 billion worth of budgetary funds allocated for this year's meeting expenditures.

These funds were allocated on the assumption that councillors would pass 15 bylaws this year; as it happened, they only passed eight. A total of Rp 33,3 million is budgeted to pass each bylaw.

Councillors had earlier proposed the establishment of a team to probe alleged corruption in the city sanitary agency, following the controversial Bantar Gebang dump case.--JP