T

he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said on Thursday that it will investigate Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar’s alleged involvement in a Rp 1.5 billion (US$168,000) bribery case that involved his ministry.

The antigraft body said it planned to investigate Muhaimin’s role after a recording of a wiretapped phone conversation presented on Wednesday at the Jakarta Corruption Court mentioned his name.

“We will study all the facts revealed at the court,” KPK acting spokesman Priharsa Nugraha told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. “The investigation is being launched to possibly reveal the identity of another player.”

The bribery case hit the media headlines after two officials at the ministry, I Nyoman Suisnaya and Dadong Irbarelawan, were caught accepting a Rp 1.5 billion bribe from businesswoman Dharnawati on Aug. 25 last year. Dharnawati had been sentenced to 2.5 years in jail for paying the bribe in order to win a construction project in Papua.

The recording is a wiretapped phone conversation between Muhaimin’s aide Iskandar “Acos” Prasojo and Imam Syukri, a journalist working in Jakarta.

The conversation was said to have taken place a day after Nyoman, along with his direct subordinates Dadong Irbarelawan and businesswoman Dharnawati, was arrested on Aug. 25 and prior to the delivery of the Rp 1.5 billion bribe paid to secure the project.

The conversation indicates that a request was made to not incriminate the minister in the bribery case. In it, it is stated that the case must stop at Nyoman.

Acos, who was presented by KPK prosecutors as a witness to testify against Nyoman at Wednesday’s trial, said he did not understand the content of the conversation, nor its purpose.

Acos said the conversation was between him and his friend, a journalist. “It happened just after the case [the arrest], so I don’t understand the conversation,” he said as his answer to a question from presiding judge Sudjatmiko about the purpose of the conversation in which is declared “do not let this get to the minister”.

It was not the first time Muhaimin’s name has been mentioned in the case – he was also mentioned in Nyoman’s indictment.

“The defendant, alone or with Dadong, Muhaimin and Jamaluddin Malik, received gratuity from Dharnawati,” the prosecutors said when reading the indictment in November last year.

Jamaluddin Malik is Nyoman’s immediate supervisor at the ministry who, along with Muhaimin, has not been named a suspect yet.

Nyoman, as well as Dadong, has been charged with not only accepting bribes, but also giving money to other state officials that were involved in the case.

Priharsa said, however, that the KPK had not scheduled a time to summon Muhaimin for questioning.

The case also implicates four members of the House of Representatives’ (DPR) Budget Committee and Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo, as the program was proposed by the Manpower Ministry with the consent of Agus and the House’s budgetary committee.

Muhaimin and several of his aides, as well as four budget committee leaders and Agus, have undergone KPK questioning as witnesses in the case.