Farouk Arnaz – The House of Representatives and the National Police are mulling the establishment of a special detachment for corruption, a senior police official said on Monday.

"The issue has been discussed in the National Police. We will form [its structure]. We still have no definite conclusion," the head of the National Police's security department Cmr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti said.

He said the National Police have set up a team to discuss the possibility of forming a special corruption detachment.

Badrodin said if the special detachment has been formed it could be integrated with the directorate of corruption that currently exists under the National Police's detective unit.

Previously, Bambang Soesatyo, a member of House commission III, which oversees legal affairs, criticized the National Police for its failures in handling major corruption cases.

"The corruption case involving Siti Fadilah Supari as a suspect is still unfinished," he said, referring to the former minister of health who was named in a hearing at the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court in 2012. She is alleged to have abused her powers in procuring medical equipment for the ministry's crisis center in 2005.

Corruption cases reported to the National Police are currently being handled by a directorate led by Brig.Gen. Idham Azis, which operates under the detective unit. However, it is frequently criticized for its inability to solve major corruption cases.

The suggestion to set up a special detachment for corruption cases has sparked debate among experts and politicians. Bambang Widodo Umar, a security analyst and retired senior police official said there has been no urgent need to set up a special detachment for corruption.

Bambang said special detachments should be formed only for serious emergencies. For instance, he said, the police were forced to set up anti-terror squad Densus 88 when, following the Bali bombing, the National Police did not have a special division that focused on fighting terrorism networks.

"A special detachment for corruption is perplexing. What is the urgency? We already have the detective unit now, and the National Police are also allowed to move and act anytime there is an alleged graft case," he said.

Bambang said the police should have been satisfied with the authority and funding provided to support their operations to eradicate corruption, including major cases involving the country's high-ranked officials. At least Rp 206 million ($18,000) has been allocated to investigate one corruption case.

He added that the police only needed to optimize their available resources while at the same time clean their house of outside intervention and bribery. "The investigation should remain independent and free of intervention, especially while handling cases involving people with power," he said.

Bambang said the special detachment could also widen the rift between the police and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). "The KPK has earned the public trust. It is only logical that if corruption cases are being handled by them, the National Police should work hard to earn back the public trust," he said.

Bambang said if the National Police managed to fulfill its function of solving corruption cases and earn back public trust, the KPK would no longer be needed in the future and it could then focus more on preventing graft.

The idea to set up a special detachment for corruption cases first emerged during the fit-and-proper test for incoming chief of the National Police, Com. Gen. Sutarman in front of Commission III.

Commission member Ahmad Yani suggested forming the detachment to help police accelerate their efforts to solve corruption cases.

Bambang Soesatyo denied the suggestion was meant to weaken KPK's authority. "The most important thing is to entrust corruption eradication to KPK while strengthening the National Police," Bambang said.

The National Police has been cited by several surveys as one of the nation's most corrupt institutions.

Sutarman, 56, testified during his nomination hearings that he could not immediately investigate his soon-to-be subordinates' allegedly "fat" bank accounts, as many in the public wished he would.

The National Police Commission (Kompolnas), a watchdog established by the state, recently alleged a number of police officers, including top generals, had amassed suspiciously large amounts of personal wealth. Some of those it named were even among the candidates for police chief.

The discovery earlier this year that a low-ranking Papua Police officer's bank account was used to funnel suspicious transactions totaling Rp 1.5 trillion, uncovered in an investigation by the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), tasked as the state's anti-money laundering unit, further fuels suspicions of corruption. Adj. First Insp. Labora Sitorus, an officer with the Sorong District Police in West Papua, was arrested in Jakarta in May and named a suspect in a fuel-smuggling case, following the seizure of 400,000 liters from a boat registered in his name. Around a million liters of fuel linked to the suspect was confiscated.

Labora was also allegedly involved in illegal logging. Police at Surabaya's Tanjung Perak Port seized 115 containers packed with 2,264 cubic meters of illicit merbau timber allegedly belonging to Labora last May. The wood was traced to West Papua's Sorong district.