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View all search resultsThe Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has identified 10 suspects in an alleged graft case involving the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry employee performance allowances for the 2020-2022 fiscal year, but has yet to disclose their identities.
he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has identified 10 suspects in an alleged graft case involving the Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Ministry employee performance allowances for the 2020-2022 fiscal year, but has yet to disclose their identities.
KPK director for investigation Asep Guntur Rahayu said that based on the latest investigations of the case, there were likely 10 suspects in the case suspected to be within the ranks of the ministry’s finance department.
He said the suspects conducted their crimes by intentionally mistyping the amount of employees’ personal allowance.
“For example, the performance allowance is supposed to be Rp 5 million but they typed in Rp 50 million [US$3,341], and when they got caught they would say ‘oh, there’s a typo.’ But in reality, Rp 50 million had already been transferred,” Asep said on Thursday, as quoted by Kompas.
The KPK has yet to request for the Immigration Directorate General of the Law and Human Rights Ministry to bar the 10 suspects from going abroad, saying that so far the suspects were still willing to cooperate with the authorities.
KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri said that on Thursday the KPK had summoned the energy ministry's acting minerals and coal director general M. Idris Froyoto Sihite for questioning as a witness, but he failed to answer the summons.
“We are rescheduling the questioning and the KPK hopes that the person in question will cooperate,” Ali Fikri said in a statement on Friday.
When asked about the identities of the 10 suspects, Ali Fikri said their identities would be revealed once the investigations into the case were deemed to be enough.
On Tuesday, the KPK confiscated about Rp 1.3 billion in cash from M. Idris’ apartment unit in Pakubuwono, Menteng, Central Jakarta after finding the key to the apartment among other documents confiscated from the Minerals and Coal Directorate General and the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry offices on Monday.
Energy Minister Arifin Tasrif said he had been notified by the antigraft body about the alleged corruption case and would respect the legal process.
"Let's just follow the ongoing process," he told reporters at the Presidential Palace as reported by Kompas.
Also on Thursday, the KPK named Rafael Alun Trisambodo, a middle-ranking tax officer who has been in the spotlight for showing off his lavish lifestyle, as a suspect in a gratuity case.
Rafael was alleged to have received gratuities between 2011 and 2023, when he served as a tax controller at the Finance Ministry's Taxation Directorate General.
The antigraft body opened its investigation into Rafael's wealth in early March after a criminal case against his son for assault inadvertently exposed his lavish lifestyle.
The case surrounding Rafael’s wealth emerged after police arrested his 20-year-old son Mario Dandy Satrio on charges of assaulting the 17-year-old son of a member of GP Ansor, the youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).
Pictures of Mario showing off his lavish lifestyle proliferated across social media in the ensuing days, which led to deeper public scrutiny of Rafael’s sources of wealth.
The KPK launched an investigation to clarify the sources of Rafael's questionable wealth, which it deemed as not matching the typical wealth profile of an echelon III official.
In his wealth report submitted to the KPK in December 2021, Rafael declared a total wealth of Rp 56 billion, rivaling that of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani’s Rp 58 billion and surpassing that of Taxation Director General Suryo Utomo, an echelon I official who had declared his wealth as Rp 14 billion.
The KPK first summoned Rafael on March 1 for questioning over the wealth that he and his family had accumulated.
But the antigraft body has since widened its inquiry from merely seeking clarification over his dubious wealth reports, including the 2021 report that made the rounds on social media, to tracing the taxman’s sources of wealth.
Soon afterward, the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) froze more than 10 bank accounts suspected of being linked to Rafael, following its separate probe into the unusually large wealth of the middle-ranking taxman.
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