Jakarta Post, Jakarta – The Indonesian financial intelligence unit reported a sharp increase in suspicious transactions in the country's financial institutions during the election campaign, raising concerns on the legality of some political campaign fund sources.
The report from the Financial Transaction Reports Analysis Center (PPATK) shows that suspicious transactions, in domestic banks and in non-bank financial institutions, almost tripled from about 486 cases per month before the election campaign began in July 2008, to about 1.300 cases per month in the first three months of 2009.
"We have received more reports on suspicious transactions than last year, and the number of reports have jumped drastically since January," PPATK said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post on Friday.
The financial intelligence body said that it has submitted 666 cases to the police and Attorney General's Office after finding them to possibly involve corruption, money laundering and fraud. "Signs of possible corruption are what we found most among these suspicious transactions," it said.
These allegedly involve money transferred to politicians to finance political campaigns for the 2009 legislative and presidential elections.
"It must have been something to do with elections campaign funds. I think it is a way to get around the restrictions on campaign donations. PPATK should cooperate with the police and Bawaslu (the election monitoring body) to find out to which candidates the money went," Danang Widyoko of the Indonesia Corruption Watch said.
Election law puts a limit of Rp 1 billion on personal contributions and Rp 5 billion on company contributions to political parties. A transaction is considered to be suspicious if it involves, for example, a sudden transfer of money without clear explanations about the sender or the intended use of the funds.
Earlier, PPATK chairman Yunus Hussein said the suspicious transactions were an indication of possible money laundering cases in Indonesia, a country regarded as a target for international money laundering. He did not rule out the possibility that dubious transactions might be connected to political parties and related institutions.
PPATK also noted a sudden increase in cash transactions during the election period, raising suspicions that the funds may have been mobilized for the general elections. Money politics has been commonplace among political parties in Indonesia particularly ahead of and during national and local elections.
While poll monitors had reported suspected money politics practices and alleged violations of the election regulations pertaining to the maximum limits for corporate and individual contributions to political parties, no cases have come to court. This was attributed to weak data and poor financial investigations.
Yunus said his office would only be able to analyze and trace whether the financial transactions were channeled to political parties or politicians if the National Elections Commission (KPU) asks for help.
Yunus said he had asked the House of Representatives to complete the deliberations of a revised bill on PPATK, strengthening its role and authority to deal with suspicious transactions. If approved, the bill would allow the center to investigate suspicious transactions and to freeze assets.
On its seventh anniversary on Thursday, the financial intelligence body said it would cooperate with more government institutions to join forces to eradicate money laundering within the country.