Ezra Sihite – Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam said on Monday said that collusion between Indonesian ministry officials and lawmakers were not only limited to the three ministries he had recently reported to the antigraft body.
Dipo, who earlier this month reported the ministries of agriculture, defense and trade to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) following alleged reports of collusion for corruption, said similar practices also took place in the other ministries.
"Those three are enough as samples and the KPK can go after that," Dipo said after a hearing with the House of Representatives Commission II.
Dipo also said that in the case of the three ministries he has reported, his target was not the ministers but the ministries themselves so that they can clean themselves. "I am not playing around by going public with this, and my targets are not the ministers but their ministries," he said.
He added that the act of reporting suspected corruption to the KPK was based on a 2012 presidential instruction on corruption eradication, which stipulates that all government official should exert efforts to fight corruption.
Dipo issued a memo on Sept. 28 warning against budget collusion to ministers, ministry officials, regional heads and directors of state-owned enterprises ahead of the passage of the 2013 state budget by the House of Representatives.
He said he issued the notice after he received a text message from Dahlan Iskan, the minister for state enterprises, who said House members were trying to extort state-owned enterprises for kickbacks in the run-up to the budget being finalized.
Dipo said he had received several reports of the alleged activity from civil servants shortly after he banned the practice, and subsequently reported these to KPK.
Dipo's move has been met with denials and criticism from ministry officials and lawmakers, some of whom said the move highlighted growing disorder in the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Antigraft activists, on the other hand, said the illicit practice was "nothing unusual" and that it was rife throughout the government.