There is no excuse for AGO to suspend, halt investigation
There is no excuse for AGO to suspend, halt investigation
Kurniawan Hari and Leo Wahyudi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Critics have slammed the Attorney General's Office for its
inaction in following up House of Representatives (DPR)
Commission III findings in 2000 on the alleged misuse of Rp 2.6
trillion belonging to the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).
Legislator Indira Damayanti of the Indonesian Democratic Party
of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and Indonesian Corruption Watch
(ICW) chairman Teten Masduki said that the office had been too
slow in dealing with the alleged corrupters.
"It has been two years. There is no excuse for the Attorney
General's Office not to follow up the findings, no matter how
incomplete the information is," Indira told The Jakarta Post by
phone on Sunday.
Teten added that the office should have wasted no time in
investigating the alleged corruption.
"The Attorney General's Office should have been active in
probing the findings," Teten said.
Indira and Teten were commenting on recent excuses by the
office that it could not possibly carry out an investigation.
The office said the allegations, as reported by the former
deputy chairman of Commission III, Widjarnako Puspojo, lacked
information and the report was submitted unofficially by
Widjarnako to former attorney-general Marzuki Darusman.
The evidence had been in the form of notes taken down in
meetings between Commission III members who were looking into the
alleged corruption of Bulog funds.
Marzuki said earlier that he could not act on the House
Commission III reports since the report was merely minutes of a
commission meeting, not official documents.
Attorney General M.A. Rachman has so far ruled out any
immediate action on the alleged corruption, saying his office
didn't have any data.
Rachman underlined the importance of examining the Development
Finance Comptroller (BPKP) reports of inquiries into Bulog's
activities from January 1998 through December 1999.
Teten criticized the office for just waiting for reports from
external parties instead of tracing the mishandled funds itself.
Indira suspected that the Attorney General's Office inaction
was most likely politically motivated.
She said that the report had not been handed over to Marzuki
by chairman of House Commission III Awal Kusumah, a Golkar Party
member, but by Widjanarko from the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).
"Possibly, Golkar didn't want the case investigated further,"
she added.
A BPKP report, among other matters, clearly states that former
Bulog chief Rahardi Ramelan of the Golkar Party had retrieved Rp
51.4 billion of Bulog funds for "state purposes".
Rahardi is standing trial for the alleged misuse of Bulog
funds in 1999, which also implicates the Golkar chairman and the
then minister/state secretary Akbar Tandjung.
Rachman said that his office did not have at hand the BPKP
report which gives a detailed account of the alleged corruption
of Bulog funds.
It clearly states that some Rp 2.7 trillion in Bulog non-
budgetary funds had been allegedly misused since 1994. The
inquiry itself began in Oct. 1998 and ended in Mar. 2000.
"We are searching for the document," Rachman said.
Rachman said that he had yet to contact Marzuki on the matter
of the notes taken down in meetings of House Commission III, on
the alleged corruption of Bulog funds, since he "just read the
newspaper yesterday."
"So it is difficult for me to identify the problems, since I
have not seen the document," he said on the sidelines of an
Association of Airlangga University Alumni forum on corruption
eradication over the weekend.