State budget graft more than $280 million in 2001

Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) found last year 1,076 cases of irregularities in the state budget, which potentially caused a total of Rp 2.8 trillion (around US$280 million) in losses to the country.

The figures were revealed by the agency's chairman Satrio B. Judono to the legislators during a House of Representatives plenary session.

The findings come only a day after the State Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) reported the discovery of some Rp 2.5 trillion in misused state funds in state institutions during the same year.

This serves as more evidence that the country's half-hearted efforts to stamp out graft and corruption have again proven fruitless.

Since, the start of the reform era in 1998 -- which was marked by the downfall of the corrupt regime of former president Soeharto -- pledges to eradicate corruption in the country had been made by each successive administration.

As time goes by however, it has become clear that little real action has been taken.

Thursday's report stated, of the total findings in 2001, the largest amount of state funds, totaling more than Rp 1 trillion, had been misused by state-owned enterprises.

The amount was by far lower than that of the previous year's, when state-owned enterprises were reported to have abused a staggering Rp 87 trillion of state funds.

"That huge figure in 2000 was mostly comprised of state banks' loans being transferred to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) that have turned bad," Judono explained.

Throughout 2001, most of the irregularities were in the category of "deviations from law", and totaled 450 cases, followed by "deviations from a set of objects" which totaled 321 cases.

Ranking third was "cases of failure to comply with austerity and efficiency", which totaled 305.

The agency, in its report, did not provide examples of the category terms.

BPK said in the 2001 state budget that irregularities on the revenue side totaled 44 cases amounting to Rp 172 billion in potential losses.

On the expenditure front, 462 cases of financial abuses were found, causing Rp 140 billion in losses.

Regional administration budgets (APBD) also recorded 302 cases of abuse, from which the country lost Rp 177 billion.

In the meeting, Judono also said that the report had yet to represent the actual amount of losses the country might have suffered, as only a portion of the government institutions gave their full support to the process.

"It seems that efforts to minimize state losses have gotten only a little attention from related parties, even though the agency had issued direct and indirect directives," he said.