M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) revealed Thursday that the use of the emergency fund overseen by the National Disaster Management and Refugee Coordination Board (Bakornas) for tsunami victims in Aceh and Nias was rife with irregularities.
BPK chief Anwar Nasution said abnormalities abounded in the disbursement of the Rp 5.4 trillion (US$600 million) fund collected through 1,200 accounts opened by government agencies. The fund collected money from domestic and foreign donors, who gave money for the tsunami victims.
Bakornas collected a total of Rp 5.8 trillion in the months after the tsunami, which killed more 130,000 people in Aceh and left some 500,000 homeless.
Bakornas, which was initially responsible for the government's humanitarian operations in Aceh and Nias, was headed by Vice President Jusuf Kalla and then coordinating minister for the people's welfare Alwi Shihab as Barkornas vice chairman.
Anwar said the BPK team had found a total of Rp 354 billion leftover from the collected fund, which was unaccounted for. The money was not sent to a government account opened at Bank Indonesia, he said.
"We urge the government to quickly decide on the status of the remaining money so that it can be controlled by the government and reduce the potential of it being misused," Anwar said after a meeting with House of Representatives leaders to present the team's findings.
Details from the report said the irregularities included a disbursement of the relief funds long after the tsunami emergency period was over, instances where the value of aid contributed in foreign currencies was marked down and the absence of authentic documents to validate the disbursement of the funds.
The team found a Bakornas task force in North Sumatra made erroneous conversions on funds received in foreign currencies. Instead of using the middle rate set by the Bank Indonesia for foreign currencies, the task force applied the lowest rate, deflating the real amount of foreign aid.
There were also instances where officials at the task force erroneously discounted the actual value of aid, the team said. "We found that assistance worth Rp 19 billion was reported as only Rp 1.9 million. We also found that what was recorded as Rp 3.5 trillion was in reality only Rp 35 million," BPK auditor Ikhtaria Syaziah said.
BPK auditors also discovered the bulk of the materials bought with the aid were still sitting in warehouses in Jakarta, with many of the purchases made long after the tsunami emergency period was over.
The goods, ranging from stationery, medicines, clothing and books, could be found in the warehouses of the National Police, the Ministry for National Education and the Ministry of Health, the report said.
The BPK also found irregularities in the use of a Rp 1.9 trillion emergency fund taken from the 2004 state budget.
Anwar said that BPK could not conclude the irregularities meant there was graft in the use of the funds.
"Only the police can launch an investigation into whether corruption has taken place," Anwar said. House member Tengku Nurlif of the Golkar Party, who also sits on a team overseeing the use of the fund, said the House should throw its weight behind BPK efforts to investigate Bakornas.
"The House must support any efforts to punish those who have misused the relief fund," he said.