West Papua Attorney General's Office detains suspects in corruption case involving SMK Forestry campus construction
Manokwari (ANTARA) - The West Papua Attorney General’s Office (Kejati) has detained two suspects in an alleged criminal corruption case involving the construction of Campus II of SMK Negeri Kehutanan in Sorong, Southwest Papua, for the 2023-2024 fiscal year valued at Rp67.94 billion.
The Head of the Legal Information Section (Kasipenkum) of the West Papua Attorney General’s Office, Prima Rantjalobo, in Manokwari on Thursday, stated that the two detained suspects are initialled AGT, as the Director of PT RSU’s Manokwari branch, and FGK, the deputy director of the company.
“After investigators obtained two pieces of evidence, we held a case assembly to designate the two suspects and detain them simultaneously,” she said.
She explained that the SMK Kehutanan Campus II construction project was funded through the State Sharia Securities (SBSN) scheme with a total budget of Rp67.94 billion, divided over two fiscal years: over Rp24 billion in 2023 and Rp43.93 billion in 2024.
The project implementation did not finish according to the agreed target, with progress only reaching 84.40 percent, resulting in contract termination on 8 January 2025, and based on calculations by BPKP auditors, there was a state loss of Rp17 billion.
“In the implementation, the work was not carried out by the core personnel as per the contract documents, but by other parties who lacked technical qualifications,” she said.
In addition, she said, investigators found several irregularities, including reduced quality and quantity of work, as well as the use of labour without the technical competence as per the bid documents.
Furthermore, there was manipulation in the concrete work because quality testing was not conducted according to procedure. Even, the pouring process was done before sample testing in the laboratory, so the structural quality did not meet technical specifications.
“The two suspects are alleged to have deliberately reduced the work volume and used part of the project funds for personal interests,” Prima said.
The two are charged with the primary article, namely Article 603 juncto Article 20 letter c of Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code juncto Article 18 of Law Number 31 of 1999 on the Eradication of Criminal Acts of Corruption as amended by Law Number 20 of 2001.
In addition, they are also charged under Article 7 paragraph (1) letter a of Law Number 31 of 1999 as amended by Law Number 20 of 2001 juncto Article 20 letter c of Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code.
“The two suspects have been detained in the Class IIB Manokwari Prison for the next 20 days, effective from 15 April 2026,” she said.