Rabby Pramudhatama, Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) says it has interrogated several officials at the Religious Affairs Ministry about a graft-ridden procurement of Korans in 2010.
"The Koran is a miracle [for Muslims], so we have to be careful in dealing with it," KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto told reporters on Thursday.
Bambang said that the KPK investigators had questioned some officials, declining to discuss the investigation in detail.
KPK chairman Abraham Samad told lawmakers at a hearing of House Commission III overseeing law and human rights on Wednesday that there were indications of "serious violations" of procurement regulations in the Koran printing project.
The corruption took place under the watch of Nasaruddin Umar when he was chief of the Religious Affairs Ministry's Islamic education directorate general, Abraham said. Nasaruddin is currently the deputy minister. "We have strong evidence of corruption, but I can't recall how much the state losses were," Abraham said.
KPK spokesperson Johan Budi said that the shady procurement took place in 2010. "The current status of the case is still at the preliminary investigation phase. We still don't know yet about the amount of money involved in the project."
Johan, however, said that the graft involved officials from the Religious Affairs Ministry's main office in Jakarta.
According to the KPK, the Religious Affairs Ministry was the most corrupt institution of 22 government agencies it surveyed in 2011. The ministry received 5.37 points out of a possible 10, below the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, which received 5.44 points, and the Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry, which received 5.52 points.
The KPK previously announced that it had discovered irregularities in the management of Rp 1.7 trillion (US$180.2 million) in interest payments from haj pilgrim payments managed by the ministry.
Contacted separately, Nasaruddin said he was surprised to learn of the allegations. "I was the director general at that time. I was responsible for the budget allocation for the procurement. Maybe that's why my name was mentioned," Nasaruddin told The Jakarta Post on Thursday, claiming he had no role in the case.
"From the data on my desk, and some that I gathered from the [ministry] inspectorate general, I found no indication of corruption. Yet, I support the KPK investigation and I will cooperate," he said.
Nasaruddin said that the Religious Affairs Ministry could supply only 100,000 of the 2 million or so Korans it needed a year for local religious affairs offices and Islamic schools, and had to print the rest.
"It used to be that we did not have to ship Korans every year, but since 2010, we saw demand skyrocket and we needed to print Korans," he said.
In 2010, the ministry spent Rp 3 billion to buy Korans and Rp 5 billion in 2011. Nasaruddin said that he had warned his officials not to compromise the integrity of the procurement project and warned contractors not to look for much profits from the project. "Never play around with the Koran. The sins will multiply," he said. (fzm)