Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The Ministry of Defense is looking into the procurement of 100 Scorpion light tanks from a leading British arms company in the mid-1990s, in hopes of helping the anticorruption unit in a potential bribery investigation.

"The ministry has all the documents considered as administrative evidence on the purchase of the tanks. But the ministry did not deal with other issues, including the payment," the ministry's director general of procurement Maj. Gen. (ret) Aqlani Maza said at his office on Monday.

The purchase itself was divided into two separate contracts signed in 1995 and 1996 by two four-star Army generals – Gen. Wismoyo Arismunandar and Gen. R. Hartono – respectively. "Based on the contract, none of this ministry's officials were involved," Aqlani said.

Also in the contracts, the name of Siti Hardiyanti "Tutut" Rukmana, the eldest daughter of former authoritarian ruler Soeharto, did not pop up, but her brokerage company, PT Surya Kepanjen was appointed as the contractor.

Aqlani was responding to a series of hard-hitting investigative reports by British newspaper, the Guardian, about all the irregularities that occurred between Indonesia and British tank manufacturer, Alvis Vehicle Ltd.

The Guardian stated that Alvis paid 16.5 million pounds (US$31.9 million) in bribes to Soeharto's eldest daughter to secure a 160-million pound sale of Scorpion tanks in the mid-1990s.

The 100 armored vehicles, including Scorpion light tanks, were sold with the condition that they would not be used for internal repression. However, they were subsequently discovered in action in the breakaway province of East Timor and in Aceh, the Guardian said.

The sales were backed by the British government's Export Credits Guarantee Department, which was left to pick up a bill of 93 million pounds when Indonesia succumbed to the 1998 financial crisis, it said.

Under a contract signed on January 13, 1995 by Wismoyo and Alvis president Geoffrey Charles Abel, the Indonesian Army agreed to purchase 51 military vehicles, including nine Scorpion 90 Dantons, nine Scorpion 90 Santons, 10 armored vehicle carriers (APCs), five Commando tanks, a bridge-laying vehicle, an ambulance and two repair and recover vehicles.

The 78.9-million pound contract included training programs for Indonesian officials, Aqlani said. Wismoyo was the Army chief at the time. The second contract was signed by Wismoyo's successor, Hartono, on August 19, 1996.

The Scorpion tanks were reported at the time by the Army to be priced at $2.5 million each. By comparison, Singapore bought exactly the same types of tanks at the same time for only $1 million each.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has said that it planned to investigate.

The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) recorded that most of the military's shopping spree, which began in the mid-1990s was littered with many highly irregular transactions, and it has continued even though leaders have changed, ICW researcher Danang Widoyoko said.

Weapons purchases:

• 1994: 39 used ships from Germany US$1.1 billion (the actual market price is $12 million)
• 1994: 25 amphibious tanks $2 million (the actual market price is $500,000)
• 1995: 40 British-Hawk 100/200 $30 million (the actual market price is about $8 million)
• 1996: 18 French-made VAB armor $1.7 million (the actual market price is about $1 million)
• 1996: A US-made Hercules C-130 $15 million (the actual market price is only $14.1 million)
• 2001: 14,000 Russian AK-47 rifles $360 million (the actual market price is about $300 million
• 2002: 48 MP-5 SD assault rifles $158.40 million (the procurement held without a proper bidding)
• 2002: Four Russian-made Sukhoi The procurement was not done properly raising speculation that markups were rampant
• 2002: Two Russian-made Mi-17 The choppers have yet to arrive here after the contractor, PT Putra Pobiagan Mandiri, failed to pay $3.2 million in downpayment to Roboronexport, the manufacturer in Russia