Agus Maryono and Andi Hajramurni, Purwokerto/Makassar – Twenty tons of rice has vanished from a warehouse of the state logistics agency Bulog, raising suspicion it was sold illegally.
The disappearance of the rice from the warehouse in Banyumas, Central Java, comes at the same time as several provinces report their rice supply has reached critically low levels.
The missing rice was first brought to light by the warehouse's chief Bahram. He said while checking warehouse stocks on Tuesday night, he found 1,000 20kg rice sacks were missing. The sacks were intended for the government's rice-for-the-poor program.
Imam Syafei, head of Bulog's office in Banyumas, which oversees four regencies – Banyumas, Banjarnegara, Cilacap and Purbalingga – confirmed Wednesday the rice was missing. "The missing rice was worth around Rp 80 million (US$8,695). We don't know who stole it," he said.
He said the missing rice was set to be distributed to the poor next month."We can still distribute rice for the program in April. This isn't a problem since we can get rice from another warehouse if we need to," Imam said.
He said he assumed the rice was stolen some time over the long weekend.
Imam said the thieves must have used trucks to steal the rice. Since a truck could carry around 7 tons, whoever stole the rice had to have loaded it into several trucks, he said.
He said the apparent theft had been reported to Banyumas Police."Let the police investigate the case. There is someone who we suspect is involved but it's not my place to investigate. If an official was involved, he will be charged and punished," Imam said.
Banyumas Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Suherman said Wednesday the police questioned 12 witnesses, including the warehouse's chief and security guards.
A local trader, Tofik, was skeptical of claims the rice was stolen. "It can't be true. It's impossible for an office like Bulog to have no security guards. I think the rice is being sold for a cheaper price," the trader said.
Meanwhile, Bulog has been unable to replenish its rice supply for shortage-struck areas such as South Sulawesi due to the high market price of unhusked rice.
After meeting with a protest group of around 100 poor housewives, the head of Bulog's office in South and West Sulawesi, Abdul Karim, told journalists his office had only 20,000 tons of rice, enough for three months. "Our rice supply is critical at the moment," he said.
He acknowledged some areas in South Sulawesi have entered harvest season. But he said Bulog could not buy the unhusked rice, which was selling for Rp 2,400 per kilogram, since this price was much higher than the Rp 1,730 per kilogram budgeted for the agency.
"As long as unhusked rice is still priced above Rp 1,730 per kilogram, and if the government doesn't make a new pricing policy, we can't replenish our rice supply (that way)," Abdul said. He said his office set itself the target this year of providing 232,800 tons of rice to poor residents in the two provinces.
However, he said people should not worry since a shipment of imported Thai rice reached Indonesia earlier this month. Around 66,000 tons of the rice reached South Sulawesi on Tuesday.
"Earlier, we said we didn't sell imported rice in South Sulawesi, which is a rice producing province. But if the supply isn't enough, we have to distribute imported rice. We can't let people starve," he said, adding that the imported rice will only be distributed to the poor, and not sold on the market.