President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo is scheduled to swear in Comr
resident Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo is scheduled to swear in Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti on Friday following the approval of his appointment by the House of Representatives one day earlier.
'Tomorrow I will install [Badrodin],' Antara news agency quoted the President as saying on Thursday on the sidelines of his visit to Bandung to inspect the final preparation of the commemoration of the 60th Asian-African Conference next Friday.
The House unanimously agreed with the President's proposal to promote Badrodin, who was formerly the deputy chief of the National Police and has been acting chief for several weeks, just a few hours after House Commission III gave its endorsement. The President canceled the previous appointment of Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named him a graft suspect.
On Thursday, during his confirmation hearing with Commission III, Badrodin pledged to establish a special team to regain the public's trust in the police force.
'We will establish a task force that will tackle the problem of corruption internally and we will create stricter regulations to decrease any opportunity to commit graft,' he said.
He also said that as the next police chief he would try to increase the investigative budget, which currently only covers 36.2 percent of all cases reported annually. The limited budget has often led to officers looking for dishonest ways to fund their cases, he said.
Furthermore, Badrodin expressed his commitment to establish an online whistleblower system so that members of the public could report police officers they suspected were involved in corrupt activities.
'To completely eradicate [corruption] would be excellent and to decrease it even a little bit is also satisfactory,' he said.
After a two-hour hearing, all 10 factions of Commission III approved of Badrodin's nomination without any debate. Commission III chairman Aziz Syamsuddin said that Badrodin fulfilled all the requirements to be a police chief and he won their votes unanimously.
'Commission III, through each faction, agrees to endorse the nomination of Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti as the National Police chief,' he said.
Badrodin's nomination did not take place without controversy.
Leaked data from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) said that Badrodin was among 23 police generals who kept suspiciously inflated bank balances. An internal police investigation had claimed that 17 out of 23 accounts, including those of Badrodin and Budi, were clean and both the KPK and the PPATK have recently agreed on the subject.
According to a wealth report submitted by Badrodin to the KPK last year, he claimed to possess total monetary assets of Rp 8.2 billion (US$640,000) and $4,000.
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'Commission III, through each faction, agrees to endorse the nomination of Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti as the National Police chief.'
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