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Following standoff, Police revive corruption fight

The National Police are rejuvenating their role in pursuing corruption cases, which have been dominated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in the past decade

Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, March 5, 2015

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Following standoff, Police revive corruption fight

T

he National Police are rejuvenating their role in pursuing corruption cases, which have been dominated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in the past decade.

National Police detective division chief Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso had previously said that his division wanted to be more active in eradicating corruption and was currently handling several cases.

National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto told The Jakarta Post that former law and human rights deputy minister Denny Indrayana had been summoned for questioning as a witness in a case involving a payment gateway, an online passport application service originally launched on July 14 last year.

The program was suddenly halted in October last year after the ministry said that it had not yet permitted the program to start.

'€œ[Denny] has not been named a suspect in the case yet. We have summoned him as a witness in the case to be questioned on Friday,'€ Rikwanto said on Wednesday.

The case was first reported by Syamsul Rizal, who was representing civil-society organization Pijar on Feb. 10 against Denny for allegedly being the mastermind behind the alleged graft in the payment gateway project.

Although investigators suspected foul play, Rikwanto said, they had yet to calculate how much of the Rp 32 billion (US$2.4 million) in the project had been lost.

So far, investigators have questioned 12 witnesses from the ministry, including former minister Amir Syamsuddin.

The Democratic Party politician was questioned on Tuesday afternoon but was tight-lipped about what he was questioned about. However, he did say that he was mainly asked about the online payment gateway.

'€œ[The payment gateway] was set up because of many complaints from the public about the slow service when applying for passports, but after a while we found that it wasn'€™t compatible with the Finance Ministry,'€ he said after questioning on Tuesday.

Amir also said investigators did not mention Denny and that they did not specify what kind of case they were investigating.

Separately, the police'€™s detective division (Bareskrim) also searched the Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry'€™s offices in Jakarta and Depok, West Java, on Wednesday in connection with a graft case centering on the procurement of electric buses in 2013 implicating one of the ministry'€™s employees, only known as P.

'€œWe searched the property for documents containing information on when the contract to procure the buses was first formed,'€ lead investigator Sr. Comr. Samudi said on Wednesday.

Samudi explained that the tender winner, PT SAP, could not fulfill its deadline to provide 11 electric buses by the end of December 2013. Instead, the company delivered eight buses in June last year.

The contract between the ministry and PT SAP was worth up to Rp 24.4 billion.

'€œOur investigation has led us to believe that the graft has led to state losses of Rp 5 billion,'€ Samudi said.

He added that P, who is currently the ministry'€™s Strategic Science Industries deputy, would be charged with articles 2 and 3 of the 1999 Corruption Law, which was amended in 2001, and could face a sentence of 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Following in the footsteps of the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO), the police have started to refocus on corruption cases.

The AGO has formed a special unit to handle corruption cases.

After the KPK named Police Education Institute (Lemdikpol) head Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan a suspect in a bribery case, the police have engaged in an open rivalry with the antigraft body by naming former KPK leaders suspects, while accusing its investigators of illegal firearms possession.

While previously focusing on terrorism, the force is now joining the AGO in pursuing corruption cases, which had often been neglected in the past and prompted the government to establish the KPK during former president Megawati Soekarnoputri'€™s tenure.

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