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Robbing the poor to help the
rich
By Bill Guerin
Indonesian prosecutors this week accused Speaker
of the House of Representatives and Golkar Party
chairman Akbar Tanjung of lying and treating state money
as his own in a politically charged scandal involving
the alleged misuse of Rp40 billion (US$4 million) from
the National Logistics and State Food Agency (Bulog).
In the same temporary courthouse at the
Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) building in
Kemayoran, central Jakarta, the same panel of judges
that tried and sentenced Tommy Suharto to 15 years in
jail are nearing decision time in a trial of which Vice
President Hamzah Haz has said, "I feel sorry about it.
This is a test for Akbar and a risk for a leader that
could also happen to other leaders."
The
"Bulogate II" scandal surfaced last October 9, when
former Bulog chief Rahardi Ramelan told prosecutors he
gave Rp40 billion to Tanjung for a food relief program,
Rp10 billion to former defense minister/military
commander Wiranto to fund civilian security units, and
Rp4.6 billion to retail chain PT Goro Batari Sakti
(owned by Tommy Suharto).
In 1999 President B J
Habibie had allocated Rp40 billion in funds from Bulog
for a program to feed the poor and tasked Tanjung with
overseeing the philanthropic good deed. The money was
channeled through the State Secretariat in 1999, which
Tanjung headed at the time.
Tanjung has admitted
channeling the money but claims it was transferred to
meet basic needs of the poor during the peak of the
economic crisis in 1999. Tanjung appointed an unknown
Muslim foundation, Raudlatul Jannah, chaired by Dadang
Sukandar, a property tycoon to distribute the
sembako (nine basic food items including rice and
other staple commodities). They, in turn, gave the job
to a private contractor, Winfried Simatupang.
The prosecution says there is absolutely no
evidence any food was ever delivered. After Tanjung had
been charged, but before the trial began, Simatupang
returned all the money to prosecutors. He later admitted
to the Court that returning the money to the state was
based on "good will and an intention to save Akbar
Tandjung", and agreed that the project was fictitious.
Bambang Purnomo, a law professor from the
University of Gadjah Mada, an "expert witness" called to
testify by the defense told the Court that Tanjung
should not be on trial because the money had been
"returned" and the state had therefore recouped its
financial loss.
"With the return of the Rp40
billion to the state coffers, the charges against the
first defendant, Akbar Tanjung, cannot stand," he said,
adding that the "return" of the money negated the
allegation that the defendants had tried to enrich
themselves and the corruption charge had been completely
disproved.
Local media had a field day over this
nonsense, pointing out that this argument meant that
theft (or embezzlement) is not a crime if the stolen
money is returned.
Tanjung, with exquisite
understatement, complained on Wednesday that his case is
highly politicized.
"It is not true when it is
said that from early on there was an intention to enrich
myself or others ... these charges are heavy with
political connotations," he told the makeshift courtroom
when reading out his defense statement. Golkar
supporters packed the makeshift courtroom to applaud
Tanjung as he described the charges as "really untrue
and hurtful" and claimed that charges against him are
part of a politically motivated plot to discredit his
character.
State prosecutor Fachmi, however, had
earlier said that "the improprieties in the case
involving the handover of checks, [not issuing] receipts
... indicates that he intentionally wanted to enrich
himself and the other defendants".
Fachri
demanded a four-year sentence for the accused although a
maximum sentence of 20 years is prescribed by the law
for crimes related to abuse of power and graft.
Politics have indeed colored the tale from the
very beginning. Prosecutors say the money went into
Golkar coffers to finance its campaign in the 1999
general election. Indonesia's law on political parties
forbids personal donations to a party in excess of Rp15
million ($1,500) a year, and stipulates a maximum
corporate donation of Rp150 million.
The
country's three largest parties are the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) led by President
Megawati Sukarnoputri, the United Development Party
(PPP) headed by Vice President Hamzah Haz, and Golkar
itself, chaired by Tanjung. Strong rumors have
circulated that all three parties received funds from
Bulog during the run-up to the 1999 general election and
that the only two parties not to have used the state
funds were the Justice Party (PK) and the Democratic
People's Party (PRD).
Golkar was also
instrumental in the moves to investigate ex-president
Abdurrahman Wahid over the first Bulogate scandal, which
eventually led to his downfall, involving the
embezzlement of Rp35 billion from the agency by people
close to Wahid. Bulogate II was disclosed by the faction
of Wahid's National Awakening Party in the legislature,
a move many believe to be political revenge for Wahid's
ouster.
Tanjung, however, after being charged,
had a meeting with Megawati's husband, businessman and
legislator Taufik Kiemas, to seek assurances that the
president's PDI-P would not back calls to establish a
Pansus (special parliamentary committee) to investigate
this second scandal.
Megawati took power a year
ago promising to root out Indonesia's endemic graft, but
nonetheless strongly rejected efforts to establish the
parliamentary inquiry. Her PDI-P badly needs Golkar's
support in parliament and PDI-P, with about a third of
the seats in the House holds a majority when lining up
with Golkar in the voting chambers. This pragmatic
alliance has held fast despite Tanjung's trial, and is
likely to hold fast till at least 2004 when the next
elections are due.
Corruption of state funds is
endemic. Two different state auditor bodies reported
huge misuse of state funds. The Finance and Development
Monitoring Agency (BPKP) - the government's internal
auditor - found 14,541 cases of irregularities in the
implementation of 2000 and 2001 national budgets of
state institutions. Potential losses came to Rp9.5
trillion, with Rp 2.5 billion spirited away in 2001.
Separately, the State Audit Agency (BPK) found 1,076
cases of irregularities in 2001, with potential losses
of Rp 2.8 trillion. Potential losses for the two years
were a massive Rp39 trillion.
Legal pundits
estimate 90 percent of Indonesia's judges are corrupt,
while audits and investigations have revealed rampant
corruption within the Attorney General's Office and the
courts. Even the attorney general, Mohammad Abdul
Rachman, has acknowledged that systematic corruption is
rife throughout Indonesia and claims his office is
trying to stop the rot. He said a proactive attitude is
badly needed to empower the community to combat corrupt
practices. "The success of prosecutors in uprooting a
crime like corruption is inseparable from the
participation of the community."
Last December,
however, results of an external audit of the Attorney
General's Office by PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed a
shocking level of corruption that shows just how easy it
is for Indonesia's elite to buy justice.
The
audit report said the Indonesian justice system would
probably "collapse" without payments from rich companies
and individuals to the Attorney General's Office.
According to the report, the Public Prosecution
Service (PPS) has "an institutionalized unofficial
budget, set by the PPS and its members and provided for
through an intricate scheme of unofficial payments made
by members of the public, businesses and other justice
institutions". The Attorney General's Office gets some
$34 million a year from the state budget, which usually
leaves an annual shortfall of 40 percent.
The
auditors said payments to state prosecutors sometimes
originate from the police, who allegedly receive part of
the bribes. "Often, it comes from brokers or lawyers
looking for an advantage for a client. One defense
lawyer estimated that payments are made in 95 percent of
cases."
The report said there are also payments
made and received by prosecutors to pervert the course
of justice, such as to bury a dossier, file weak
charges, impose negligible sentences, or release a
criminal after conviction.
Justice and Human
Rights Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra, once accused of
corruption by members of his own political party,
slammed some of the suggestions made by a United Nations
special rapporteur on the independence of judges and
lawyers as completely unacceptable.
At a press
conference on Tuesday after a meeting with UN rapporteur
Dato Param Cumaraswamy, Yusril said he couldn't simply
dismiss judges suspected of corruption. Yusril claimed
that an all-out effort is being made to improve the
Indonesian judiciary, but said there were limits to what
action could be taken. He told Cumaraswamy that methods
used by other countries (to promote judicial reform)
should not be applied in Indonesia.
Cumaraswamy,
a Malaysian, was quoted as saying that Indonesia was
"great at talking but lousy at getting things done", due
to a lack of political will to improve the situation.
Tanjung, a former chairman of the Islamic
Student Association (HMI), is seen by Indonesians as
having played an important role in ousting all of
Indonesia's first four presidents, Sukarno, Suharto, B J
Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid. He is a powerful figure
and worthy of great respect for his ability to survive.
He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the
case and insisted that Golkar did not use the funds. He
has also refused to quit as parliamentary Speaker or as
chairman of Golkar, but a guilty verdict looks almost
certain to end his political career, including any
chance of running for president in 2004.
The
well-being of the country, both politically and
economically, would be much improved by strong, forceful
action to attenuate the abuse of state money. A nation
so punch-drunk on rampant pillaging of the country's
wealth is likely to see the first ever successful trial,
prosecution and sentencing of a corrupter from the elite
as symbolically breaking through the past oppression and
into clean governance.
Lord Mountbatten said,
"If you want to clean a staircase, you have to start at
the top." This is the singular failure of the Wahid and
Megawati administrations. Both have been wholly
unsuccessful in starting at the top, the middle or even
the bottom.
Any fudging of the verdict on the
defendants in the Bulogate II case will reflect badly on
Megawati and her government and indicate that behind the
scenes, powerful people can still manipulate power and
badly impact on the potential for reformation.
The vested interests in the New Order elite, and
their power and influence, prevent this coalition
Government, just as they did during the Wahid watch,
from enacting any policies at all which would change the
"status quo".
The House of Representatives,
which in the days of Suharto, was overwhelmingly Golkar,
closed their eyes to gross cases of corruption, and
potential causes for impeachment even, whilst Suharto
ruled with his iron fist. Public opinion here in
Indonesia overwhelmingly attributes this to the fact
that they were being bribed and increasingly question
whether the new reformation era has changed anything at
all.
If the 40 million strong Nahdlatul Ulama's
(NU) has its way, drastic measures will be implemented.
The nation's largest Muslim organization recommended
that convicted corrupt officials be given the death
sentence in an effort to fight against the corruption,
bribery, money politics and state debt that take such a
heavy toll on many people's lives by causing poverty and
misery.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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