THE WEEK'S HEADLINES

Monday, June 15, 2015

KPK have reopened the 2011 driving simulator case. Two more witnesses were questioned.

KPK had silently handover the 2012 Hambalang case to Attorney General Office (AGO). Many feared this marks the end of the case because during KPK's last examination of the case, PDIP politician Olly Dondokambey allegedly took part in the case.

KPK would also monitor distribution and use of village funds. KPK took the initiative since the Government's Decree No. 22/2015 about village fund management is not yet quite transparent in its implementation.

Civil society Budget Watch Coalition rebuffed the aspiration fund proposal of 20M rupiah for each parliamentarian. The coalition gave 12 reasons why they stand against the idea, including a potential misuse or corruption of state budget.

The AGO, meanwhile, named 9 suspects in a corruption of electric cars project that involved Dahlan Iskan.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Police have endorsed three of its officers to run for KPK leadership: Inspector General (IG) Yotje Mende, IG Syahrul Mamma, and IG (Ret) Benny Mamoto.

Dahlan Iskan had his first examination in corruption of electrical relay stations. Out of 21 stations to be developed in the project, 3 didn't have contracts, only 5 were completed, while the other 13 unresolved.

The National Democrat Party rejected the parliament's proposal on aspiration fund. Nasdem representatives in DPR consider the idea would provide more opportunity for abuse of state funds and contradictory to the principles of regional development fairness and equality.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Minister of Law and Human Rights Yasonna Laoly pushed for a revision of Law No. 30/2002 about KPK, which is focused to overhaul wiretapping and prosecution authorities, and establishment of an all-new KPK supervisory board.

In the meantime, KPK workers that sent a sarcastic wreath for KPK leaders were threatened to be fired. The employees' gesture were an expression of their discontent with the actions taken by their leaders that overlooked Budi Gunawan's pretrial and neglected the cases against their own Abraham Samad, Bambang Widjojanto and Novel Baswedan.

Acting chairman Ruki, on the other hand, wants KPK to have a mechanism to legitimately cease an ongoing investigation at any given time (SP3).

On global outlook, Indonesia gained two places in the Global Corruption Perception Index 2014, from number 30 to 32.

At the parliament, Vice Chairman of the house Fahri Hamzah, gave his support to the proposed aspiration funds for parliamentarians, which he described as manifestation of their constitutional duty that was mandated by law as well as their oath of office.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Inspector General of Police Yotje Mende registered himself as candidate for KPK leadership. He admitted to have only submit his wealth report as public officer (LHKPN) once before, in 2007, and does not regard the report to be important. He would only submit a recent report if KPK selection panel required him to do so as a candidate.

In the case of condensate corruption, former Chief of BP Migas Raden Priyono and former Deputy of Economics and Marketing at BP Migas Djoko Harsono were questioned as suspects. They allegedly abuse their authority in direct appointment of TPPI as the condensate sales partner.

Supreme Judge Gayus Lumbuun proposed three option for Supreme Court to regulate pretrial. First, to publish an official stance on Judge Sarpin Rizaldi's ruling that favored pretrial appeal of former police chief candidate Budi Gunawan by expanding pretrial authority to review case materials. Second, to limit pretrial authority only to review legitimacy of detention, legitimacy of prosecution termination, and compensation and rehabilitation of suspects and their families. Third, to let pretrial judges decide whether to rely on the Criminal Code (KUHAP) in their rulings or to implement expanded authority as taken by Judge Sarpin.

Friday, June 19, 2015

Hanura Party have joined in refusing the proposed parliamentarian aspiration funds by declaring that DPR should not assume any authority that are not the inherent functions of parliamentarians. Particularly if said authority would only case new problems and overlap with the government's authority.

Executive Director of gas company PGN was questioned in relation to the company's operational vehicles requirements, were PGN sponsored procurement of 16 electric cars for use during the APEC by request from state-owned companies. The case is known to involve former minister Dahlan Iskan.

ICW suspected the initiative for KPK Law revision was commissioned a number of interested individuals, purportedly corrupters, with a single objective of impairing KPK instead of empowering it.

Former CEO of BP Migas Raden Priyono revealed that direct appointment of PT TPPI was done by Jusuf Kalla.

DPR finally allow KPK to have the authority to recruit their own investigators, instead of borrowing from the Police and AGO. The argument was that KPK's cases are special cases that require particular skills from investigators, thus KPK need the authority to appoint and train their own investigators.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

June 15

• Police submitted three names to register as a candidate for KPK leadership of 2015-2019 period.
• KPK resumed driving simulator case with examination of two witnesses.
• KPK handover Hambalang cases to AGO.

June 16

• Bambang Widjojanto revoke his pretrial appeal in South Jakarta District Court.
• Dahlan Iskan questioned for the first time by AGO in alleged corruption of electrical stations.
• Allegations made about corruption of grant funds for Persiba by Bantul Regent in Yogyakarta.
• Nasdem fraction in DPR rejected aspiration funds proposal.

June 17

• KPK Law revision included in long-term priority of National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) 2015-2019.
• KPK employees threatened to be laid off for sending sarcastic wreath to their commissioners.
• Indonesia ranks fairly high in global governance and bureaucratic corruption index.
• Ministry of Finance employees questioned as a witness in alleged corruption electrical station.

June 18

• Former BP Migas CEO Raden Priyono and former Deputy Economics and Marketing Djoko Harsono questioned as suspects in alleged corruption of condensate.

June 19

• Hanura rebuffed parliament's aspiration fund proposal.
• Executive Director of PGN questioned in alleged corruption of electric cars procurement.
• DPR approved KPK's authority to appoint and train its own investigators.
   

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

Corruption Lurks Behind Aspiration Fund

This week, the hottest political headline is DPR's proposal to allocate Rp 20M aspiration fund for each Member of Parliament. According to the MPs, aspiration fund is equivalent to pork barrel politics in the Philippines as a breakthrough to improve, accelerate and evenly spread development output in each electoral district.

However, not all factions in the House approved the initiative. Six factions that supported the proposal are Golkar, Hanura, Gerindra, PPP, PAN and PKS. Two factions, PKB and PDI-P has not made a public stance, while the other two, Nasdem and Demokrat have openly rejected the proposal (Kompas print, June 18, 2015).

The discourse on aspiration funds which would be directly managed by MPs to be distributed to their constituents in each region has been proposed several times, in different periods, and has always failed due to wide and harsh rejection. Counter arguments over the proposal focused on potential abuse and corruption when MPs are allowed to manage state funds. Budiman Sudjatmiko and Henri Yosodiringkat, two MPs from PDI-P are worried many of them would be incarcerated because of the aspiration funds. Vice President Jusuf Kalla questioned the aspiration fund supervisory mechanism since at the same time, Parliament are supervising the government.

From civil society, the Indonesian Bishops Conference through his secretary, Father Benny Susatyo believe aspiration fund is the practice of bribery to constituents and merely an image building exertion. Andi Jaweng, Executive Director of the Regional Autonomy Implementation Monitoring Committee (KPPOD) reckon the aspiration funds will bring about pragmatic political tradition while undermining the logics of Special Allocation Fund (DAK). The relationship between representatives and constituents would lead to clientèlism, said Yuna Farhan, activist from FITRA.

Budget Watch Coalition, a league of anti-corruption and budget monitoring CSOs, balked at the proposal. They listed 12 reasons for their vexation, including a potential for more development gaps, opportunity for budget brokers, potential for massive corruption, bias of supervisory functions, budget overlaps, etc.

To learn from our neighbor, the Philippines practiced aspiration fund dubbed Priority Development Assistance Fund. PDAF implementation sparked massive corruption involving members of parliament, members of congress, executive officers, project brokers and businessmen. Pork barrel corruption sparked the wrath of the people which led to massive protests. In 2013, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled pork barrel funds as unconstitutional.

The people still have to wait and see if in the end, after all arguments flying around, DPR would restrain their avarice, or resist rejection and stick with their agenda. Until now DPR could not be unanimous in their decision to accept or reject. This split leave a space open for the public to put pressure on DPR to stop their stubbornness to enjoy aspiration funds.

The Entangled KPK Law Revision

Minister of Law and Human Rights, Yasonna Laoly proposed to imminently revise Law No. 30 of 2003 on Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). KPK Law revision was included as long-term priority in the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) 2015-2019. In his statements, the minister wants to overhaul KPK's authority to wiretapping and prosecution.

If he gets his way, Yasonna would focus his revision on three crucial points. First, to avoid human rights violation, KPK would only have authority to wiretap subjects who have been processed pro-justitia. Second, the prosecution authority of KPK would be reviewed to avoid overlap with other law enforcement agency like Kejagung (AGO). And third, establishment of an all-new KPK supervisory board.

His initiative was heavily criticized and received negative response from many. Some said the effort to revise KPK Law is part of an ongoing effort to impair KPK by mutilating their core authorities. In public eyes, should KPK lose its authority to prosecute and have their wiretapping scope trimmed, their performance would dwindle, obviously.

The reputed excellence of KPK relies, among others, in a special system where investigation and prosecution are coordinated under one roof. This system leads to fast and efficient communication between investigators and prosecutors. Cases are no longer abandoned merely because of papers being pushed back and forth. More crucially, under one coordination, investigators and prosecutors share a common perception and mind-set since a case began to be processed.

Particularly on wiretapping, KPK Deputy Chairman Indrianto Seno Adji predicted the revision would only impair, diminish or weaken KPK's authorities. He argued, wiretapping is KPK's trump card to uncover bribery with ambush arrest operations (OTT), and OTT is KPK's artillery in their law enforcing crusade. (Kompas, June 18, 2015).

As it turned out, the current KPK Law revision initiative sparked a renewed controversy. Both the Government and DPR are throwing responsibility. The Government maintain that the idea to revise KPK Law was not theirs, but from DPR. The Minister asserted that DPR were pushing the revision because there were He added that there are deficiencies in KPK Law.

On the other hand, DPR refused to take heat. Chair of Prolegnas Working Group, Firman Soebagyo spoke out about revision initiator. Firman insisted that revision proposal originate from the Government.

There were contrasting opinion within the executive camp. President Joko Widodo, by way of State Secretary Minister affirm that the government have no intention to revise KPK Law. While Vice President Jusuf Kalla prefer to respond positively in light of the initiative. JK said philosophically that a revision is not synonym with weakening, but could also mean strengthening..

And there were even conflicting statements from within the KPK board. Commissioners Johan Budi and Indrianto Seno Adji reckon there's no need for a revision. They agreed that a KPK Law revision as envisioned by the Minister would decidedly weaken the anti-graft body. And yet, other Commissioner, Acting Chairman Taufiqurrahman Ruki, insisted KPK need this revision.

The controversy about KPK's authorities is actually an old debate which had been settled by a number of Constitutional Court rulings. In fact, the KPK Law had been reviewed a staggering 17 times. The Constitutional Court have consistently maintain that KPK's prosecutorial authority adhere to the Constitution, and their wiretapping practices are legitimate. In conclusion, there is no urgency to revise KPK Law and if the Government and the Parliament are true to the Constitution, they should have stopped insisting to revise KPK Law.