Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – The government's campaign against graft seems to be coming unstuck at the prosecutor's office, with a mountain of cases still to be tried. A paltry two of about 2,000 corruption cases have been processed in the past six years, head of the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office Rusdi Taher said Wednesday.
Prosecutors cite the complicated aspects of many of the cases, requiring expertise in banking and finance, the involvement of powerful figures as witnesses or suspects and a lack of human resources in making it difficult to proceed to trial.
"We have only been able to handle alleged corruption cases in the sale of a state sugar factory in Gorontalo in northern Sulawesi, and the sale of assets of a shopping plaza in Bandung. We only have a few prosecutors handling corruption and banking cases in our office," he said.
For the Gorontalo case of the sale of assets of state-owned PT Rajawali III, Rusdi said there were problems in investigating the many businesspeople involved as well as understanding the technicalities of banking and financial transactions.
Former head of the now defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) Syafruddin Temenggung and several of his staff were named suspects last month and detained.
The office said evidence showed that Syafruddin caused state losses of more than Rp 505 billion (about US$54 million) in 2003 when he sold assets in the sugar factory to a private company for Rp 95 billion, while their face value was Rp 600 billion.
Syafruddin, who denies the allegations, said he did his job in accordance with regulations. He argued the money raised from the sale was fair because it was impossible to secure a transaction based on face value amid the decreasing value of state assets.
He also said that the sale was approved by the Financial Sector Policy Committee, whose members included then state minister for state enterprises Laksamana Sukardi, then coordinating minister for the economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti and then finance minister Boediono, who is now coordinating minister for the economy.
Jakarta Prosecutor's Office spokesman Mustaming said Tuesday that his office had summoned Laksamana to verify if he gave his approval on the sale of the sugar factory's assets.