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Official gets four years for graft
The Corruption Court on Thursday sentenced senior Manpower and Transmigration Ministry official Taswin Zein to four years in prison for his role in a graft case involving his office
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he Corruption Court on Thursday sentenced senior Manpower and Transmigration Ministry official Taswin Zein to four years in prison for his role in a graft case involving his office.
Prosecutors had only demanded two-and-half years for Taswin, a former treasurer at the ministry's productivity directorate, for aiding the embezzlement of Rp 13.7 billion (US$1.25 million) of state funds in his role as overseer of two procurement projects at his office between October 2004 and May 2005.
The court also fined Taswin Rp 50 million, ruling that failure to pay the amount would result in a three-month extension to his prison term.
He was also ordered to pay Rp 100 million as compensation for the money he pocketed in the crime.
"The defendant has legally and convincingly been proven guilty of committing collective graft, violating Article 2 of the 1999 law against corruption," presiding justice Kresna Menon said.
Taswin was found guilty of manipulating both the process to procure equipment for vocational training centers, which are spread throughout the country, and the development of training and apprenticeship projects, together amounting to Rp 45 billion in allocations.
The panel of justices said Taswin had ordered the funds be disbursed to suppliers who hadn't signed contracts with the ministry or handed over equipment.
The court revealed the defendant disbursed the funds to PT Mulindo Agung Trikarsa (Rp 2.62 billion), CV Dareta (Rp 1.64 billion), PT Panton Pauh Putra (Rp 2.06 billion), PT Gita Vidya Hutama (Rp 1.7 billion) and PT Suryantara Purna Wibawa (Rp 1.97 billion).
"The defendant also took some Rp 100 million for himself," Kresna said.
In the previous trial hearing, Taswin admitted disbursing some of the embezzled money to several officials at the ministry and the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).
He said he had given Rp 150 million to the directorate's secretary Bachrun Effendi, Rp 290 million to the ministry's secretary-general Tjeppy Alowie, and Rp 650 million to BPK auditor Bagindo Quirinno.
He also admitted giving Rp 150 million to another BKP auditor, Poempida Hidayatulloh, who is the son-in-law of former manpower and transmigration minister Fahmi Idris.
Prosecutors had earlier accused Taswin of bribing Bagindo and Poempida in return for their falsifying audit reports on the procurement projects.
But when reading out their sentence demands for Taswin last week, the prosecutors said he had not been proven guilty of bribery, and thus demanded two-and-half years in jail for the defendant.
The panel of five justices was divided in the verdict, with only Kresna wanting Taswin jailed for four years, saying he considered the defendant guilty of bribery. The remaining four justices agreed with the prosecution's demands.
As presiding justice, Kresna took the final decision to land Taswin with the heavier sentence.
Taswin said he would decide later whether to appeal the verdict. "I'll think first what to do," he told the justices.
Taswin's lawyer, Don Ritto, said his team regretted the decision, adding that his client's move to directly appoint the suppliers was in line with an order from then manpower minister Fahmi Idris in 2004.
Fahmi admitted during a hearing of the Taswin trial on Nov. 6 that he had approved a proposal from his subordinates to directly appoint companies for the procurement projects.
"I didn't think it (the direct appointment) was a bad idea at that time, because we had a target to implement our programs within 100 days," Fahmi said during the hearing.
