The National Police questioned Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama as a witness on Wednesday in an ongoing probe into a graft case involving the procurement of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units for schools that was included in the 2014 city budget.

The police'€™s criminal investigations directorate summoned Ahok in order to complete the dossiers on the former head of the infrastructure unit of the West Jakarta Education Agency, Alex Usman, who was named a suspect in the case on March 27.

Speaking to reporters after a six-hour interrogation session at the National Police headquarters, Ahok insisted that the plan for the procurement of the UPS devices came out of the blue.

'€œThere'€™s no such plan in the 2014 city budget priorities and preliminary thresholds (KUAPPAS). It just suddenly emerged,'€ he said on Wednesday in South Jakarta.

Ahok said the UPS procurement project had never been a priority. '€œThe education sector was not a priority during the deliberation of the 2014 city budget,'€ he said, adding that the budget instead prioritized the procurement of equipment to overcome the city'€™s problems with floods and garbage.

'€œThings that were urgently needed according to the budget were trucks and heavy equipment. Those priorities were what we wanted to purchase,'€ Ahok said.

By including the plan for the procurement of the UPS facilities, he said, the Jakarta City Council had violated the agreement on the 2014 city budget previously made between the council and the governor.

'€œStatements from the Council that there was a priority for the UPS units have run contrary to our memorandum of understanding on the 2014 city budget,'€ Ahok said.

Meanwhile, the head of the anticorruption sudirectorate I under the criminal investigation directorate, Sr. Comr. Ade Deriyan Jayamarta, said that with Ahok'€™s questioning, the National Police expected that the investigation of the case could be expedited.

'€œThe governor could provide necessary information for our investigators. As such, we want to speed up the handling of the case so that we can immediately hand it over to the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO),'€ he said on Wednesday.

The UPS graft case, which has been transferred from the Jakarta Police to the National Police, began after Ahok reported alleged city budget irregularities with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

The governor submitted evidence to the antigraft body showing suspicious allocations in the council'€™s version of the draft 2015 city budget totalling Rp 12.1 trillion (US$899 million), as well as irregularities in the 2014 city budget.

Those included the procurement project of the UPS devices for state schools in Central and West Jakarta worth Rp 6 billion per unit in the draft 2015 budget, which was cancelled, and Rp 5.8 billion per unit in the 2014 city budget, which has occurred.

The case, which National Police investigators say caused around Rp 50 billion in state losses, has implicated a number of civil servants and city councilors.

Aside from Alex, the police also named the former head of the Central Jakarta Education Agency, Zainal Soleman, a suspect in the case on March 27.

The police have also questioned Jakarta Council deputy speaker Abraham '€œLulung'€ Lunggana of the United Development Party (PPP), who served as coordinator of Commission E, which oversees education issues, from 2009 to 2014, as a witness in the graft case. (alm)

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