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nti-corruption watchdogs have questioned the findings of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) on the city administration'€™s Sumber Waras land purchase. The watchdogs highlighted a number of errors in the report a few days after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) declared that it had yet to find any irregularities as claimed by the BPK.

The Civil Society Coalition for BPK Independence claimed that not only had the BPK failed to comply with a Presidential regulation, the audit agency had also not considered rising land prices in calculating state losses from the land purchase.

The coalition, comprising budget watchdogs that includes the Indonesia Budget Center and the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency, said that based on the Presidential Regulation No. 40/2014 on Land Procurement, a purchase of land under 5 hectares could be made without a land acquisition committee.

'€œThe BPK, however, used a regulation that has been revised, and states that such mechanisms could only be applied in the purchase of land under 1 hectare,'€ Jamil Mubarok from the coalition said recently.

He said that by using a different regulation in their audit report, the BPK had put its credibility at stake. '€œHow could the BPK not conduct any research before auditing the Sumber Waras land purchase?'€ Jamil asked.

In 2014, the city administration purchased 3.7 hectares of land occupied by the Sumber Waras Hospital at Rp 775.69 billion (US$58.2 million) to build a cancer facility and palliative care center.

In 2015, the Jakarta office of the BPK issued an audit report on the purchase of the land, declaring that the land should have been purchased for the same taxable value of property as the surrounding building, which would have saved the city budget Rp 191 billion. Later the central office of the BPK confirmed the Jakarta office'€™s finding.

The BPK found irregularities in the land purchase process during the planning, budgeting, procurement team establishment, purchase, price-fixing and hand-over stages. The audit report has been submitted to the KPK for further investigation.

However, KPK commissioner Basaria Panjaitan said on Monday that the commission had yet to find any indiciations of corruption in the land purchase, and emphasized that the KPK would make a thorough investigation before naming someone a graft suspect.

'€œWe have not found anything that indicates corruption, but we are still studying it,'€ Basaria said.

Roy Salam, another member of the watchdog coalition, said the BPK made a basic error in declaring state losses from the land purchase because the number came from different land prices between 2013 and 2014.

Roy added that land prices usually increased every year and said that the decision to use 2013 property values to calculate land that was purchased in 2014 was questionable.

'€œIn 2013, the Sumber Waras land value was listed at Rp 15 million per meter, while in 2014, it increased to around Rp 20 million. It is normal and cannot not be considered a state loss,'€ Roy said.

Roy suggested that the BPK revise its findings instead of accusing the city administration of graft.