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Minister defied Jokowi: Luhut
Future leaders: President Joko Widodo (center) talks with Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi (left) and Education and Culture Minister Anies Baswedan (right) at the launch of the Students Leadership Training 2015 at the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday
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Future leaders: President Joko Widodo (center) talks with Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi (left) and Education and Culture Minister Anies Baswedan (right) at the launch of the Students Leadership Training 2015 at the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday. More than 1,170 students from across the country are taking part in the program that runs from Nov. 17 to 22.(JP/Wendra Ajistyatama) (center) talks with Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi (left) and Education and Culture Minister Anies Baswedan (right) at the launch of the Students Leadership Training 2015 at the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday. More than 1,170 students from across the country are taking part in the program that runs from Nov. 17 to 22.(JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
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span class="inline inline-center">Future leaders: President Joko Widodo (center) talks with Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi (left) and Education and Culture Minister Anies Baswedan (right) at the launch of the Students Leadership Training 2015 at the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday. More than 1,170 students from across the country are taking part in the program that runs from Nov. 17 to 22.(JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
A recent controversy over a report of misconduct by several powerful figures has taken a new twist, as the chief security minister has claimed that the act of his fellow minister to report the misconduct to the House of Representatives and make it public was an act of insubordination to the President.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Panjaitan told The Jakarta Post that upon his arrival after a trip to Australia on Wednesday evening he was immediately summoned by President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in Jakarta.
Luhut said that the President explained to him that he had never instructed nor approved a decision by Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said to file a report to the House's ethics committee (MKD) that accuses House Speaker Setya Novanto of trying to broker a deal with an executive of PT Freeport Indonesia, a local unit of US mining giant Freeport McMoRan.
'The President told me that he had never instructed Sudirman to file the report, but he knew very well the people behind Sudirman who orchestrated the plot,' Luhut said.
When Sudirman reported the case on Monday, Jokowi was in Turkey to attend the G20 Summit. Sudirman claimed that he had received approvals from Jokowi and Vice President Jusuf Kalla to report the case to the MKD.
Sudirman's report includes a transcript of recorded conversation allegedly between Setya, politically connected oil and fuel import kingpin Muhammad Reza Chalid and Freeport Indonesia president director Maroef Sjamsoeddin, the former National Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy chairman.
According to the report, Setya and Reza repeatedly mention Luhut as having a role in making the deal successful.
'I've never had any business relations with the people mentioned, although I knew them well,' Luhut said, adding that he had never been interested in getting Freeport shares or participation in a project.
The leaked document of Sudirman's report stated that Setya had requested shares and a power plant project from Freeport in exchange for his services in helping the firm extend its contract for the world's biggest gold mine in Papua.
Setya was also accused of falsely claiming that Jokowi and Kalla had requested company shares in exchange for favoring a contract extension.
In response to the case, Jokowi took a light moment on early on Wednesday to comment on the case as he highlighted the inevitability of transparency in the ceaseless current of information on the internet and in social media.
In his speech during an event on Wednesday, Jokowi quipped about how Setya has become a trending topic on social media with people calling him 'papa minta saham' or 'papa wants company shares'.
'Now, different issues emerge almost every second,' Jokowi said during a national forum of the Indonesian Public Relations Association (Perhumas).
'We can read what today's trending topics are [including 'mama minta pulsa', a viral text message scam that claims your mother is asking for phone credits]. But it is modified into 'papa minta saham',' he added, stirring laughter from the audience.
Twitter hashtag #papamintasaham has become one of the trending topics in Indonesia since Tuesday night in the wake of a report by Sudirman.
'To face such a development [of faster information and growing social media], there is no other way but to build public trust through dialogue, instead of one-way monologues,' Jokowi said.
Later that day, Jokowi, however, stopped short of answering the press' questions about his witty remark.
The President said that the government would not intervene in the current investigation being done by the ethics council. 'We must respect the ongoing process in the House's ethics council,' he added.
Before officially reporting Setya on Monday, government officials had been irked by the contract negotiation process. Sudirman and Kalla had earlier expressed contempt for the then as-yet unnamed lawmaker and how his maneuvers during the negotiations had angered Jokowi.
The President has so far not shown strong reaction over the issue publicly, despite suggestions that he should take legal action against Setya.
Separately, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, represented by its expert staff member Said Didu and law division head Hufron Asrofi, submitted the original audiotape recording allegedly containing the conversation between the House Speaker and Freeport executives to the House's ethics committee.
According to Said Didu, the ministry received the original recording from a trusted source two days
earlier.
'I don't know the exact details. The minister only assigned us to give it to the MKD. That's all,' he said.
He later argued that the reason behind the slow move was because the ministry needed time to conduct a technical review of the authenticity of the recording.
MKD deputy chairman Junimart Girsang said the committee would soon have it analyzed to verify whether it matched the transcript that the minister had previously submitted in his report.
'After getting the verification, we will hold a meeting to discuss it and then hand it over to several IT experts at the National Police's Criminal Investigation Corps [Bareskrim] to check the originality of the voices,' Junimart said.
The IT experts, he said, would verify whether the voices in the recording matched the voices of the reported parties. 'If the voices match the parties reported, we will summon them and then hold a plenary meeting,' he added.
Junimart emphasized that the investigation by the MKD was only concerned with the code of ethics and would not touch on any indications of corruption. 'We only talk about the ethics code and the integrity of a lawmaker,' he said. (foy)
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