As the deadline for the Supersemar Foundation to pay penalties approached on Friday, the Soeharto family claimed the scholarship institution would be unable to meet its obligations to the state
s the deadline for the Supersemar Foundation to pay penalties approached on Friday, the Soeharto family claimed the scholarship institution would be unable to meet its obligations to the state.
A Supreme Court ruling has ordered the family of former president Soeharto to pay a total of Rp 4.4 trillion (US$321.7 million) in penalties to compensate for misuse of scholarship funds in 2008.
The youngest daughter of the former president, Titiek Soeharto, said the institution that her father had founded did not have enough money to pay the penalties.
'[The foundation's funds] are insufficient. There is no large sum of money,' she said as quoted by tribunnews.com.
She also claimed that the scholarship fund, supported by state-owned banks' profits during the New Order era, had been properly disbursed to around 2 million scholarship recipients, all from low-income families.
'[The Soeharto family] has used all of the funds for scholarships, we didn't take a penny,' she said.
The case dates back to 2008 when the Attorney General's Office (AGO) filed a lawsuit at the South Jakarta District Court accusing the Soeharto family and the foundation of misusing scholarship funds by diverting them to their own companies.
The Supreme Court found the Supersemar Foundation guilty in 2010 and demanded it pay the penalties.
The South Jakarta District Court gave an ultimatum of Friday for the foundation to make the payment or the court would start to confiscate its assets.
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