After summoning a number of legislators, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has announced plans to summon former Bank Indonesia (BI) senior deputy governor Miranda Swaray Goeltom later this month to testify in an alleged bribery case surrounding her election as a BI official in 2004.
"Yes. we plan to question her this month," KPK spokesman Johan Budi told reporters here Wednesday.
The KPK would release the exact date for the questioning later, he said.
Antigraft groups have criticized the KPK's apparently slow investigation of the case, accusing several KPK members of being reluctant to take part in the investigations because they felt politically indebted to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
The case emerged when a former legislator from the PDI-P, Agus Tjondro Prayitno, testified before the Corruption Court and the KPK that he had received Rp 500 million (US$50,000) in traveler's checks from his PDI-P colleague Emir Moeis, shortly after the House of Representatives approved Miranda's nomination for the position in June 2004.
Agus said separately that it was about time the KPK summoned Miranda to testify because she had ben mentioned by several witnesses in a case revolving around her election.
Miranda was elected when 41 of 54 members of the House of Representatives' Commission IX on banking and financial institutions voted for her, including almost all of PDI-P's 17 lawmakers in the commission, 15 Golkar legislators and several commission members from other parties.
Agus claimed that prior to the election, PDI-P members were brought together and instructed to vote for Miranda and promised between Rp 300 million and Rp 500 million for their votes.
However, PDI-P chairman Tjahjo Kumolo has repeatedly denied instructing his colleagues to take bribes and vote for Miranda.
The Financial Transaction Report Analysis Center (PPATK) later identified 400 traveller's cheques allegedly linked to legislators mentioned by Agus. Ten politicians personally cashed the cheques not long after the election, while others allegedly used proxies, such as relatives.
The KPK had declared Hamka Yandhu of the Golkar Party, Endin J. Soefihara from the United Development Party (PPP), Dudhie Makmun Murod from the PDI-P and Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) member Udju Juhaeri as suspects in the case.
Hamka was also convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment for receiving part of Rp 31.5 billion from the central bank's Indonesian Development Banking Foundation (YPPI), in 2003.
The money was allegedly disbursed by Hamka and Anthony Zeidra Abidin, also from Golkar, who had received it from senior BI official Rusli Simanjuntak in an attempt to persuade the lawmakers to approve the central bank's liquidity support settlement scheme (BLBI) and to accelerate an amendment to the BI law.
