KPK questions former minister over graft at PLN

JAKARTA: The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Monday questioned former State Enterprises Minister Sofyan Djalil as a witness in a possible graft case at state electricity company PT PLN, of which he was acting chief commissioner from 1999 to 2002.

The KPK has named former PLN president director Eddie Widiono a suspect in the case, which revolves around a PLN procurement project for a computerized customer information system (CIS-RISI) that was installed in Jakarta and Tangerang.

Sofyan said he did not know much about the project in question.

"I knew about the proposal of the procurement project, but it was not me who approved it," he said.

Before the approval for the project was issued on Nov. 21, 2003, PLN changed the composition of its board of commissioners and Sofyan lost his position to Andung Nitimihardja, who is now deceased.

Sofyan was questioned for around seven hours.

The CIS-RISI project was initiated by the ITB Polytechnic in the 1990s, but it was then subcontracted to PT Netway Utama. The total project was worth Rp 137 billion.

Suspicions about collusion arose when it became known that the head of ITB Polytechnic at the time, Gani Abdul Gani, was also the president director of Netway.

The KPK is also investigating possible corruption in the procurement of the East Java branch's IT-based customer management system project. Hariadi Sadono, the branch's former director, has been named a suspect in a case that caused Rp 80 billion in state losses. - JP