Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – Seemingly jaded with the parade of legislators standing trial for graft, Corruption Court judges have queried whether bribery is simply the norm in parliament.
"Do all laws being discussed at the House [of Representatives] need extra money from the House's counterparts?" judge Hendra Yospin asked legislator Hamka Yandhu at the Corruption Court here Tuesday.
Hamka said he did not know if such a practice was implemented in discussions of other laws, but said, "There are some."
The Golkar Party legislator was presented to testify at the trial of four former Bank Indonesia deputy governors; Maman Soemantri, Bun Bunan E.J. Hutapea, Aslim Tadjuddin and Aulia Pohan, the father-in-law of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's son.
The four men are on trial for approving the illegal disbursement of Rp 100 billion (US$5.9 million) of BI's Indonesian Banking Development Foundation (YPPI) in 2003.
Of that amount, Rp 68.5 billion was disbursed to five former senior BI officials: Paul Sutopo, Hendro Budiyanto, Heru Soepraptomo, Iwan R. Prawiranata and J. Soedradjad Djiwandono.
The five had been implicated in corruption cases relating to the misuse of BI liquidity support (BLBI) funds during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis.
The remaining Rp 31.5 billion was disbursed to two House of Representatives members, Hamka and Anthony Zeidra Abidin, both members of House Commission IX overseeing financial and banking issues, in an effort to get the House to approve a settlement of the BLBI cases and smooth the amendment of the BI law. Judge Hendra said the court needed to uncover the misconduct because it was related to legislators' behavior.
"We do not want all laws being endorsed [by the House] to approved simply because of vested personal or group interests," he said. "Our country will be ruined if we let the practice continue."
Hamka revealed the money he had received from former BI officials Rusli Simanjuntak and Asnar Ashari was then disbursed to other legislators through representatives of each faction.
He said he gave Rp 1.2 billion each to the National Awakening Party's (PKB) Amroe Al Mutasyim and the PKB Reform faction's Rizal Djalil, as well as Rp 3.2 billion to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle's (PDI-P) Dudi Makmun Murod, Rp 1 billion to the National Police and Military's Darsup Yusuf, and Rp 300 million to the Crescent Star Party's M.S. Kaban.
He also admitted giving Rp 1 billion to then commission head Paskah Suzetta, and Rp 300 million each to the PDI-P's Emir Moeis, the PKB's Ali Masykur Musa and several other legislators.
Hamka and Anthony were sentenced to three years and four-and-a-half years, respectively, for receiving gratuities from BI.
Kaban is the current forestry minister, while Paskah is the state minister for national development planning. Paskah was supposed to testify at the trial, but failed to show up due to working visits outside the capital. Prosecutors plan to summon Paskah again for the next hearing on March 31.