AGO reopens graft case against Tommy

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 07/20/2007 11:28 AM

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Attorney General's Office has reopened a corruption case against Hutomo ""Tommy"" Mandala Putra over the alleged misappropriation of Rp 1.7 trillion (US$187 million) in Clove Marketing and Buffer Agency (BPPC) funds.

""Tommy should have transferred all Bank Indonesia liquidity credits (KLBI) to clove farmers, instead of using it for his own purposes,"" Attorney General Hendarman Supandji said Thursday.

""We will investigate what Tommy did with the money,"" he added.

Hendarman said Tommy, who was the BPPC chairman at the time the alleged misappropriation of funds took place, was initially named a suspect in the BPPC case by the Joint Team to Eradicate Corruption (TGPK) before the team was disbanded in 2001.

""Now that (the case) is reopened, Tommy is already (a suspect),"" he said.

However, Hendarman could not comment on when Tommy would be questioned by the Attorney General's Office.

During its existence, the BPPC collected Rp 1.1 trillion in revenue from clove farmers and received Rp 175 billion in Bank Indonesia liquidity funds.

Secretary to the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes, Kemas Yahya Rahman, said Tommy was named a suspect after the office had questioned several witnesses.

""The investigation started based on evidence collected by the Joint Team to Eradicate Corruption and will now reopen and continue with the new evidence we've found,"" Kemas said.

The Attorney General's Office announced last month it had found procedural violations in transactions between the BPPC and several cigarette companies that use cloves as an ingredient in their products.

Investigation director at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes, M. Salim, said the office had summoned several people from cigarette companies and financial institutions related to the case.

Salim, however, declined to give their names.

In May this year, the office summoned two businessmen from two large Indonesian cigarette companies -- the director of PT Gelora Jaya, Krisna Tamini Hardja, and the vice president director of PT Gudang Garam, Mintarya -- for questioning regarding the BPPC case.

BPPC was a private institution appointed and granted a clove-trading monopoly by Tommy's father, then president Soeharto, in 1992.

Under the system, farmers were required to sell their cloves to the BPPC through cooperatives at a low price. The agency then sold the cloves to cigarette companies at a higher price, claiming the margin was for equity shares and diversification funds.

BPPC was disbanded in 1998 following an agreement between Soeharto and the International Monetary Fund to eliminate the clove-trading monopoly. The IMF refused to disburse a $43 billion bail-out package to salvage Indonesia's ailing economy if the monopoly remained in place. (08)

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