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Court testimony puts KPK leadership selection in spotlight
At a hearing on June 19, former Agriculture Ministry secretary-general Kasdi Subagyono told the court that KPK commissioners Alexander Marwata and Nurul Ghufron had made some requests to officials at the ministry.
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Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) interim chairman Nawawi Pomolango sits with commissioners Alexander Marwata (third right), Nurul Ghufron (second right), Johanis Tanak (right) and Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) head Ivan Yustiavandana (second left) during a meeting with House of Representatives Commission III overseeing legal affairs at the Senayan legislative complex in Jakarta on June 11, 2024. (Antara/Galih Pradipta)
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ecent witness testimony in a corruption case involving the Agriculture Ministry that has implicated several leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has sparked calls for the agency’s future leaders to be selected more rigorously.
At a hearing on June 19, former Agriculture Ministry secretary-general Kasdi Subagyono told the court that KPK commissioners Alexander Marwata and Nurul Ghufron had made some requests to officials at the ministry.
The former secretary-general was testifying as a witness in a bribery case involving the ministry, in which he, former agriculture minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo, Kasdi and former agricultural equipment and machinery director Muhammad Hatta were named defendants. Syahrul and the officials were accused of soliciting bribes and accepting gratuities from officials at the ministry, with the former minister allegedly pocketing Rp 44.5 billion (US$2.7 million) between January 2020 and October 2023.
In the hearing, Kasdi claimed that Nurul had contacted him in 2022 to ask for help transferring one of his relatives posted at the Agriculture Ministry’s inspectorate general to the ministry’s East Java farming technology research center.
The defendant, who served as the ministry’s acting inspector general at that time, granted Nurul’s request.
Aside from Nurul, Kasdi testified that Alexander had contacted Syahrul himself with a request for the ministry to create a program that would benefit the commissioner’s hometown in Klaten, Central Java. He also claimed that Alexander had asked Syahrul for the phone number of Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar, a fellow NasDem Party politician.
But Kasdi told the court that he did not know whether Syahrul had granted Alexander’s request.
