Markus Junianto Sihaloho – A high-level meeting on the Bank Century case ended right where it started on Wednesday, perhaps marking an end to the case both as a political weapon and as a scandal involving some of the country's highest-ranking officials.
The meeting between the House of Representatives and the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) offered up the same figures and claims that have been made numerous times in the past.
Taufik Kurniawan, a lawmaker from the National Mandate Party (PAN), led the meeting. He said they concluded that the Century bailout had caused Rp 6.7 trillion ($744 million) in state losses, a figure that has been repeated often.
But BPK chairman Hadi Purnomo said the agency had finished its work and submitted its forensic audit to law enforcement, and would not be performing any more audits.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has already said that with the current audit results it would be difficult to follow up the 2007 case with a full graft investigation.
Without sufficient ammunition from either the BPK or the KPK, lawmakers outside President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party have struggled to use the scandal as political ammunition against the ruling party.
After Wednesday's meeting, lawmakers from the Golkar Party, Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), three of the biggest parties in the House, expressed disappointment over the BPK's decision. Both Golkar and the PKS are part of Yudhoyono's coalition government, while the PDI-P is an opposition party.
They asked why the BPK had not investigated where the Rp 6.7 trillion in state funds had gone.
"I demand a deeper investigation into the money. For instance, Budi Sampoerna had at least 10 accounts at the bank. How and where did the money in the accounts go?" said Fachry Hamzah, from the PKS.
Opposition parties have accused both Vice President Boediono, the central bank governor at the time of the bailout, and former Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati of having broken the law in the decision that led to the bailout of Bank Century.
Some lawmakers have even hinted that some of the money from the government was channeled to Yudhoyono's family, even though there is no proof of that.
Several parties, including some in the ruling coalition, questioned the bailout after rumors circulated that some of the money was funneled to Yudhoyono's re-election campaign in 2009.
The BPK had earlier found that some of the president's biggest benefactors held accounts in Century, which was renamed Bank Mutiara after the government took it over. Yudhoyono has repeatedly denied the allegations.
At the height of the scandal, a number of lawmakers moved to summon the president and the vice president, a first move toward impeachment. The effort failed to materialize after a political agreement was forged among some of the political parties involved and Yudhoyono. "We want the BPK to trace the money wherever it goes," Chairuman Harahap of Golkar said.
Another lawmaker from Golkar, Bambang Soesatyo, expressed suspicion that the BPK had not done the forensic audit as the agency claimed. "We believe that the BPK did not perform the audit, as it did not involve legal and banking experts, et cetera," he said.
Talking about Budi Sampoerna, one of Indonesia's richest men, the BPK chairman said the money in the businessman's accounts was his personal wealth and was not sourced from state coffers.
Taufik said that the House would meet with the attorney general and KPK members to find out how the two institutions wanted to pursue the case.