Sutiyoso vows to bring corruption cases to court

JAKARTA (JP): Governor Sutiyoso on Wednesday vowed to bring all of the 146 corruption cases allegedly committed by city employees to the courts soon.

"I'll ask Pak (Abdul) Kahfi, the head of the reform team, to hand over the 146 cases, in stages, to the courts," Sutiyoso told reporters at City Hall.

According to standard procedure, the governor would first send an official letter to inform the respective prosecutors' offices here, depending upon which courts would handle the cases.

Responding to accusations that the reform team was reluctant to bring the cases to court, preferring to solve the cases by dispensing administrative sanctions, Sutiyoso said Kahfi and his team members were attempting to enable their employees to change their attitude.

"Once administrative penalties are imposed on those employees, they would really feel ashamed. It's his (Kahfi's) way to educate employees," Sutiyoso said.

On Tuesday, Kahfi, also deputy governor for administrative affairs, said the 146 cases investigated by his reform team were drawn from 374 cases involving corruption, collusion and nepotism uncovered since the team was founded last June.

Investigation of the remaining 228 cases has yet to be completed by the team.

"These cases are complex and difficult. It'll take some time before the team can solve (them)," Kahfi said on Monday.

He said one of the cases involved officials from Korpri (civil servants) Foundation and a senior official of the small-scale business task force.

He said foundation officials had marked up prices of a 13.5- hectare land appropriation scheme in Gunung Sahari, Central Jakarta.

"Foundation staff changed the price of the land to Rp 10,000 per meter from between Rp 2,450 and Rp 5,000 per meter."

The alleged scam had caused the administration an estimated loss of Rp 675 million, he said.

"We're still investigating the case," Kahfi said, adding that his team have yet to summon foundation executives for questioning.

Kahfi said another corruption case involved the head of the education and training subdivision of the foundation, Dwi Purwanto.

The reform team found Dwi had cheated at least 52 people, who had approached him seeking employment, by providing the job seekers with fake employment documents for a fee.

"He made as much as Rp 244.15 million from doing this," Kahfi said.

Another case concerned land appropriation of a 95.5-hectare plot -- initially intended as a garbage dumping site -- in Ciangir area, Tangerang, he said.

Jakarta sanitation agency officials allegedly marked up the price of the land from Rp 8,625 per square meter -- the amount they compensated local land owners -- to Rp 14,000 per square meter in their reports. (ylt)