T

he Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO), once considered one the country'€™s most corrupt institutions, has said its anticorruption task force, comprising 100 of its best prosecutors and established in early January, was handling 31 graft and money-laundering cases.

AGO spokesperson Tony Tubagus Spontana said on Thursday that two of the 31 cases concerned money laundering at the Transportation Ministry and the Communications and Information Ministry.

Tony said that the AGO'€™s investigators were still working to collect evidence in the two cases.

'€œJust wait for the investigation result, we are stepping up efforts to probe the two [money laundering] cases,'€ Tony told The Jakarta Post on Thursday afternoon.

Apart from these two cases, the task force has only made a breakthrough in one other case.

The case in question concerns alleged irregularities surrounding the disbursement of social aid by Cirebon regency administration in West Java over the years 2009-2012.

'€œThere are three suspects named in the Cirebon case, one is a Cirebon deputy regent identified as TS,'€ Tony said, referring to deputy regent Tasyia Soemadi.

The other two suspects are local Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politicians identified as Subekti Sunoto and Emon Purnomo.

Tony declined to give more details on other cases currently being handled by the task force.

The Post has learned that AGO investigators are currently looking into alleged irregularities plaguing state-owned enterprises, including PT Timah, postal company PT Pos Indonesia, state lender Bank Negara Indonesia 46 (BNI 46) and heavily indebted state-owned airline PT Merpati Nusantara.

The AGO launched a probe into the firms following reports from anti-graft watchdog organizations.

Employing more than 9,000 prosecutors around the country, the AGO has been criticized for perceived lenience to high-ranking officials, who it has rarely managed to send to prison.

It is often compared unfavorably with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which has imprisoned many high-ranking officials, ranging from active ministers to an active Constitutional Court chief justice, with only 96 prosecutors, all seconded from the AGO.

AGO prosecutors seconded to the KPK have a maximum 10-year non-renewable tenure at the antigraft body. They must return to the AGO afterwards.

Separately, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Emerson Yuntho applauded the swift moves by the AGO, but challenged the new task force to reopen investigations into past graft cases that had been terminated.

Emreson also warned Attorney General HM Prasetyo not to use the task force as a public relations campaign to improve his image, especially following public outcry from his controversial appointment.

'€œIn the past, the AGO established a special task force to investigate the Bank Indonesia liquidity support [BLBI] case, but the result was disappointing. The current task force must reopen past graft cases, including the BLBI case,'€ Emerson said.

Prior to the establishment of the task force, the AGO in December also announced that it had opened a graft investigation into suspicious bank accounts worth trillions of rupiah belonging to eight regional heads, including Southeast Sulawesi Governor Nur Alam, following a report filed by the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) late last year.

The Post has learned that of the Rp 1 trillion in irregular transactions in Nur Alam'€™s bank accounts, as much as US$4.5 million was transferred to the National Mandate Party (PAN) politician from a mining company based in Hong Kong. The AGO is still ascertaining the reason for the transfer.

'€œOur investigators are cooperating with the Hong Kong authorities to confirm the allegations,'€ said junior attorney general for special crimes Widyo Pramono.