T

he Jakarta Prosecutor'€™s Office has yet to confirm the roles of former state-owned enterprises minister Dahlan Iskan in a high-profile graft case surrounding the procurement of electricity transformers worth Rp 1.3 trillion (US$100 million) after the media tycoon failed to show up for questioning on Thursday.

Prosecutor'€™s office spokesman Waluyo told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that the ongoing investigation had shifted focus to Dahlan'€™s role in massive irregularities plaguing the project after its investigators charged two heads of the procurement project committee.

Waluyo said that given Dahlan'€™s position as the president director of state-owned electricity company PLN when the tender was opened, investigators believe that he was well-informed about irregularities plaguing the project, which caused hundreds of billions of rupiah in state losses.

'€œWe received information that he could not come in for questioning today because he is in Indiana, the United States. We will reschedule him for questioning in the near future,'€ Waluyo said.

The two procurement committee heads are among 15 people - of which 11 are PLN officials and four are executives of companies that won the tender '€“ who the Jakarta Prosecutor'€™s Office declared suspects after the investigation started in September 2014.

'€œThis is the first summons for Dahlan. At that time he served [as PLN director] as the user of the budget for the project. The questioning came after we named the two heads of procurement project committee suspects in the case,'€ Waluyo said.

Asked whether Dahlan should be held accountable in the case, Waluyo said: '€œLet'€™s see how the investigation progresses. We have to summons him to ask for clarification to make the case crystal clear to find out who should be held accountable in the case.'€

According to the Jakarta Prosecutor'€™s Office, the project centers on PLN'€™s procurement of 21 electricity transformers during the 2011-2013 fiscal year to be distributed to a number of power plants across the country, including in Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara.

So far, the Jakarta Prosecutor'€™s Office has found that Rp 33 billion was lost as a result of two malfunctioning central electricity transformers procured by PLN. '€œIn total there are 13 broken central electricity transformers,'€ Waluyo said.

Dahlan, who owns the Jawa Pos media group, did not return calls from the Post to seek clarification on his Thursday'€™s no-show.

 An official from Jawa Pos media group confirmed that his boss was in the US, but did not provide further information about the overseas visit.

'€œYes, he is still in the US, which is why he could not come in for questioning today. I heard that he will be back in Indonesia after three months,'€ the official said.

All 15 suspects have been charged under Article 2 of the 1999 Corruption Law, which carries a maximum 20 years'€™ imprisonment for state officials committing malfeasance, in conjunction with Article 55 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) on collective crime.

The use of Article 55 implies that other parties may have played a role in the case, but to date the prosecutor'€™s office has only named the 15 individuals as suspects.

Dahlan was appointed PLN president director in October 2009. He left his post at PLN in October 2011 after former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono assigned him to head up the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry.

Dahlan ended his tenure as state-owned enterprises minister in October 2014, when the Yudhoyono administration wrapped up its decade-long leadership on Oct. 20 2014.