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Govt works to fill graft-sized hole in BTS budget
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A technician checks a 4G base transceiver station (BTS) in Ciawi, West Java, in this undated file photo. (The Jakarta Post/Wendra Ajistyatama)
T
he interim communications minister will seek ways to fund the remaining construction work for the government’s graft-mired 4G telephony project, claiming that it was overfunded to begin with, as authorities seek to recover the stolen public funds through the courts.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD, in his capacity as the interim communications and information minister, said the reasonable cost of building the 4,200 base transceiver stations (BTS) called for in the first phase of the project was actually some Rp 4 trillion (US$268 million), a fraction of the Rp 10 trillion that had been disbursed.
The calculation, he said, was based on a Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) report he had received.
“Actually, for 4,200 towers, about Rp 3 to 4 trillion is enough. But the project was budgeted at Rp 10 trillion, then the money was spent, and it didn't turn out well,” he told journalists on Tuesday.
The BTS procurement project is headed by the Telecommunications and Information Accessibility Agency (BAKTI) under the communications ministry and has a total budget of Rp 28 trillion. By 2023, the ministry was supposed to have erected some 8,000 4G BTS towers in locations with poor connectivity, particularly in underdeveloped regions.
The project began in 2020, after Johnny G. Plate of the NasDem Party was installed as minister in October 2019. In the first phase, which had a budget of Rp 10 trillion, 4,200 BTS towers were to be constructed by 2021. The deadline was later pushed back to March 2022, by which time only a fourth of the towers had been constructed.
The significant delays raised suspicions of graft, and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) said last week the alleged corruption in the first phase of development had resulted in some Rp 8.1 trillion in state losses, far higher than its previous estimate of Rp 1 trillion. The AGO has named Johnny a corruption suspect and arrested him last week.
