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.