Suspect gets deadline to return stolen funds

JAKARTA (JP): East Jakarta Mayor Sudarsono has set a deadline for SU, an employee of the mayoralty education office who allegedly embezzled Rp 153 million funds which was earmarked for paying overtime to public primary school teachers, to return the stolen money.

"I have talked to him personally and asked that the money be returned this month at the latest," said Sudarsono, adding that as of Saturday he had not received a report from SU's boss as to whether the suspect has repaid the money. SU is now reportedly living abroad to pursue his doctoral degree.

As part of an administrative sanction, SU was demoted from his position as a treasurer last April, putting him in a non- managerial position.

The alleged fraud was discovered last April when a team from the mayoralty inspectorate office observed irregularities in the financial report of the treasury section of the education office over the payment of overtime fees for teachers of public elementary schools.

Earlier made public, some teachers of public elementary schools complained to the mayoralty administration that they had not received their honor kelebihan jam mengajar (KJM) or extra fees given to teachers who teach above their assigned teaching hours.

For practical and administrative affairs reasons, KJM is paid by the education office to the recipients every six months.

"KJM is set at Rp 1,000 for every additional working hour and cannot be more than three hours (per week) for each teacher due to the working hours permitted by the government for elementary school teachers is 28 hours a week maximum ," said Silalahi, a section head of finance at the East Jakarta education office.

City councilors have also expressed their concern over the unnecessary delay in the payment of KJM for public elementary school teachers in East Jakarta, saying that the education office should care for the welfare of teachers.

Meanwhile Terbit reported that SU has been absent from work for months because "he went abroad to pursue a doctoral degree." (arf)