SP/Novianti Setuningsih – Probes into the ongoing beef import scandal involving former Prosperous Justice Party president Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq and his close aide, Ahmad Fathanah, continued to expand as an official from one of the party's regional branches admitted to receiving large sums of money ahead of the 2012 South Sulawesi gubernatorial election.
In his testimony for Fathanah on Thursday, Andi Akmal, the chief of the South Sulawesi chapter of the party known as the PKS, said he had received a total of Rp 10 billion ($923,000) from Makassar Mayor Ilham Arief Sirajuddin, who ran for South Sulawesi governor last year.
"I think it happened about four times, to help him in the election. Fathanah gave the money through his sister, who then forwarded the money to the treasurer, Imam Rohani," Andi said during a hearing at the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court.
He said that he received Rp 4.5 billion from Amel Fadly, Fathanah's sister, while another Rp 2.5 billion was paid directly by Fathanah himself. Meanwhile, the remaining Rp 1 billion was handed over directly from Ilham to the party's regional branch office.
In an earlier testimony, Ilham, who ran on the Democratic Party's ticket, said he had approached the PKS for additional support in the election because he needed to fulfill the minimum threshold to be nominated as a candidate.
"Because the percentage of support from our party was not enough. We needed 13 seats," Ilham said. He said he subsequently sought support from the PKS and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura).
Upon being approached, Ilham said that the PKS agreed to support his ultimately failed bid to be governor, but demanded Rp 10 billion in kickbacks in return for the favor. Hanura, on the other hand, asked for Rp 2.5 billion, Ilham said.
However, Ilham said he was only able to offer Rp 8 billion to the PKS, Rp 7 billion of which was paid through Fathanah, while Rp 1 billion was handed directly to the party's regional board.
Prior to agreeing to the transaction, Ilham said he had met with Luthfi, at the time the PKS president, at a restaurant in Kuningan, South Jakarta, to discuss the deal. Fathanah was the person in charge of arranging the meeting, he added.
However, despite having met with Luthfi and being acquainted with Anis Matta, then a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives and now the PKS president, Ilham said he never communicated with the two because he was told that matters regarding his campaign would be handled by Fathanah.
"We happened to be in Jakarta. Fathanah asked us to meet and the PKS president [Luthfi] also happened to be there," Ilham said.
During the hearing, Ilham said that Rp 5 billion of the total Rp. 8 billion he had used to pay the PKS had come from his brother, Eko, while Rp 2 billion had been raised by one of his campaign team members in charge of financial affairs.
Ilham said he had trusted Fathanah because he appeared to be very involved in preparing the PKS's national working meeting and that after the meeting, he was involved in even more intense communications with Fathanah.
He added that he was confident the Rp 8 billion had been properly used by the party, as the PKS did fulfill its promise of supporting him during the election.
Earlier this month, Fathanah's sister confirmed the transactions, saying she had received money totaling to Rp 4.071 billion from Fathanah between Sept. 21 and Oct. 2 last year.
However, she questioned her brother's involvement with the deal between Ilham's candidacy and the PKS, pointing out that Fathanah was not a PKS member, despite having close ties with Luthfi. Amel also claimed not to know what her brother did for a living.
In responding to the revelations, Anti-Corruption Court Chief Judge Nawawi Pomolango said that Indonesia had set a high price for its democracy.
"Apparently it takes a lot of money [to be an elected official]," he said. "If I were to take the Transjakarta [bus service] with that money, I could have traveled a long distance. Democracy sure is expensive, isn't it?"
Ilham agreed with Nawawi's statement, saying that the price of running for public office had been set so high because it had to do "with the needs of many people." He declined to elaborate on whether that meant he had engaged in vote-buying.
The new revelations strengthen concerns over the massive corruption happening at the regional level across the country due to the large amount of funding that candidates for regional posts must raise to win public office.
According to the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), a report by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) showed that up to Rp. 2.2 trillion worth of public funds have been misappropriated since 2008. Fitra attributed the losses to 9,312 cases of corruption nationwide during that period, and identified North Sumatra as accounting for the largest amount of misappropriated money, followed by Aceh, West Papua and Jakarta.
Johermansyah Johan, the director general of regional autonomy at the Home Affairs Ministry, said on Wednesday that direct elections at the regional level had been detrimental to the reform process.
"It has stalled the government's bureaucracy overhaul," he said during a discussion at the House in Jakarta regarding a draft bill on regional elections.
Johermansyah said that 304 out of the 500 governors, district chiefs and mayors across the country were implicated in corruption cases between 2005 and 2013, in addition to there being various social conflicts, fatalities, damage to property and other negative consequences as a direct result of regional elections.
He said the facts reflected serious threats to the regions as leaders immediately failed their constituents after winning office.
"As such, the government is proposing that district chiefs and mayors be selected by district and municipal legislatures, with career civil servants appointed as their deputies," Johermansyah said.
Agun Gunanjar Sudarsa, a member of House Commission II, overseeing domestic affairs, waved off the notion that corruption by regional leaders was fueled by expensive political campaigns.
"The two are not related," he said. "Saying direct elections have resulted in politicians committing corruption is inappropriate. Because it is a result of the central government's inconsistency in implementing regional autonomy."
Meanwhile, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Abraham Samad said his office had been having difficulties in looking into corruption cases in more remote areas of the country due to inadequate infrastructure and insufficient human resources.
"The KPK has only been supervising and monitoring the local courts and police handling those corruption cases," he said on Wednesday as reported by Republika.co.id, admitting that having no regional offices had limited the KPK's scope of work.
The KPK today employs approximately 700 staff and 60 investigators, which is an insufficient number to investigate every case, Abraham said. "It's impossible for the KPK," he said.