North Sumatra councilors seek bribery probe

North Sumatra’s provincial council members have called for an investigation into reports of alleged bribery that implicate fellow councilors suspected of having accepted bribes in return for their refusal to support an interpellation proposal.

Interpellation was sought against North Sumatra’s acting governor, Gatot Pujonugroho, whom a group of councilors deemed as having exceeded his authority in executing some of his policies.

An initiator of the proposed questioning, Alamsyah Hamdani, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the bribery allegations have been making headlines for the last two weeks and are tarnishing the image of the council.

He said legal measures are the only medium to restore public trust in the council.

“Law enforcement agencies should be able to investigate the case now that it has been made public. It raises questions as to why, instead, they remain silent,” Alamsyah told The Jakarta Post onThursday.

He said he had been informed that some fellow initiators of the interpellation were among those to have received bribes to vote against the proposal.

He mentioned councilor Oloan Simbolon, whom he said might have rejected the proposal after being offered Rp 50 million (US$5,850).

“This is embarrassing. Who else can people trust if councilors can be so easily bribed?” Alamsyah said.

Lokal Golkar Party secretary Mulkan Ritonga said that the alleged bribery could be strongly felt among councilors.

He said almost all the councilors, particularly the 16 initiators of the interpellation proposal, had allegedly been offered money to say “no” to the proposal. “I was offered money but I rejected it,” he told the Post.

One councilor, who asked to remain anonymous, said the money distributed to councilors amounted to Rp 3.1 billion. It was allegedly distributed among 42 councilors, with each one receiving between Rp 50 million and Rp 70 million.

Governor Gatot has been unpopular with a number of councilors since he took office in March, following the suspension of Syamsul Arifin over his involvement in a graft case.

Gatot was criticized for his move to promote a number of officials to the Home Ministry, who were entirely different from names previously put forward. He was also lambasted for his reshuffling 136 officials in his administration.

Concerned councilors wanted to question Gatot about these issues at a formal hearing. However, at
a plenary session on Aug. 22, the proposal was rejected by 42 of the total 100 councilors; 38 accepted and 20 abstained.

Responding to demands for an investigation into the case, the head of public relations at North Sumatra’s Prosecutor’s Office, Edi Irsan Kurniawan Tarigan, said they were waiting for the case to be reported. “Once the case is filed, the prosecutor’s office will conduct an investigation as soon as possible,” he said.