RJ Lino - JP/Kurniawan Hari

The National Police are scheduled to question president director of state port operator PT Pelindo II, RJ Lino, next week in relation to alleged irregularities in the procurement of fixed crane-type loading and unloading equipment.

The National Police director for special economic crimes, Brig. Gen. Victor E. Simanjuntak, said on Saturday that Lino would first be questioned as a witness and was expected to give further information regarding the findings of police investigators when they raided the Pelindo II headquarters and Lino'€™s office in Tanjung Priok on Friday evening.

'€œWe have scheduled his questioning for next week. We will ask him to clarify a few of our findings,'€ he said.

Victor said that they had confiscated 26 bundles of documents from Lino'€™s office on Friday, two of which were deemed to be most crucial to the investigation: one was a document from an internal audit institution and another was from the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP).

According to Victor, during a two-month investigation the police found irregularities in the procurement of 10 cranes in 2013. The cranes were scheduled to be sent to eight sea ports across the country by this year, but none had arrived.

Furthermore, investigators discovered that most of the sea ports did not need any new cranes.

'€œWhy were [the cranes] bought if the sea ports did not need them? This is what we need to find out,'€ he said.

Victor acknowledged that the National Police did not have the official estimate of alleged state losses from the procurement and would rely on the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to calculate the figure.

'€œWe can'€™t estimate the state losses yet, but the whole project is estimated to have cost Rp 5 trillion [US$354 million],'€ he said.

Furthermore, he claimed that investigators had already identified several potential suspects but refused to disclose the names.

'€œWe actually already have suspects but I won'€™t say [their names] yet. Why would we need to raid [Pelindo II] if we didn'€™t already have a suspect? We already have enough evidence, since we have been investigating this for more than two months,'€ he said.

Local media reported that although Lino was initially reluctant to allow investigators to search his office, he eventually relented.

'€œThe police have the right to examine and investigate, but the procurement of that equipment has already been audited by the BPK. If they say that this is a follow-up to the BPK [report], there'€™s no such thing,'€ Lino said.

This is not the first time the Pelindo II president director has faced scrutiny. Last year, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) questioned Lino over alleged irregularities in the purchase of $17 million worth of equipment for three sea ports in Palembang and Lampung in Sumatra, and Pontianak in Kalimantan.

On Monday, the Jakarta International Container Terminal (JICT) workers'€™ union also filed a police report against Lino for defamation as he allegedly called the union '€œbandits who sabotage, were not nationalistic and an enemy to the country'€ following their decision to conduct a strike over the extension of the JICT'€™s concession for foreign companies.

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