Sutiyoso grilled for 3 hours over Ancolgate
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office questioned City Governor Sutiyoso on Wednesday as a witness in a graft case related to a controversial foreign trip involving city officials and councillors.
The governor was questioned for about three hours regarding the three suspects: councillors Tarmidi Suhardjo and Tarmidi Edy Suwarno from Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and Ali Imron Hussein from United Development Party.
City-owned PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol (PJA), spent Rp 2.7 billion (US$270,000) while the city budget disbursed Rp 1.6 billion (US$160,000) on an overseas trip to Australia, Japan and Canada, which lasted for one week on Oct. 12, 2000.
The suspects allegedly accepted double allowances (US$5,000) from PJA and Rp 55 million from the budget) although they did not join the trip.
Sutiyoso, who was the president commissioner of PT PJA, told reporters after the questioning, that he actually disagreed with the trip because the country was still in economic crisis.
But the company disbursed the money, anyway.
As for the money from the city budget, he said that he could not object because it had been allocated for the councillors.
A total of 16 councillors and several city officials joined the so-called comparative study trip to the three countries as PJA would develop a water city project in Ancol, North Jakarta.
"Through this investigation, we are looking for (new) suspects," the prosecutor's office chief Muljohardjo said.
It seemed, however, that Sutiyoso would not be implicated in the scandal.
Muljohardjo defended Sutiyoso, saying the governor could not reject the disbursement of Rp 1.6 billion fund from the city budget.
Muljohardjo also said PJA's president Rushadi disbursed the money for the trip without Sutiyoso's approval.
Separately, city spokesman Muhayat admitted on Wednesday that the city secretary Fauzi Bowo had been scheduled to be questioned as a witness on Thursday, but was postponed.
Fauzi was believed to know that the trip was financed both by PJA and the city budget.
Muhayat said he feared that the case could be used to insult Fauzi, who is currently nominated by the Betawi Collective Body (Bamus) as a candidate for the next gubernatorial election in October.
Muhayat said that the council's secretary, Moerdiman, handed over the trip's proposal to Fauzi, on behalf of the governor, on Sept. 15, 2000. Fauzi approved it on Sept. 22, and the Rp 1.6 billion fund was disbursed on Sept. 29.
Meanwhile, PJA proposed the trip to the governor on Oct. 6 and Sutiyoso, through his disposition letter on Oct. 10, asked them to give second thoughts to the plan.
"But PJA had disbursed the money weeks before the fund from the city budget," Muhayat claimed, adding that Sutiyoso has dismissed Rushadi earlier last year.
Six low-rank employees who joined the trip were also dismissed.