Agung Laksono Meets Anti-Graft Body's Summons

Jakarta, April 4 (Antara) - Coordinating Minister for People`s Welfare Agung Laksono here on Thursday met a summons of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to clarify a graft case related to the construction of the 2012 National Sports Week (PON) venues in Riau Province. "I come to clarify (the involvement of) Rusli Zaini," he said referring to the Riau governor who has been named a suspect in the case. Agung came to the KPK building in the company of Rudy Alfonso who is a member of the Golkar Party`s law division. KPK spokesman Johan Budi said earlier Rusli was accused of bribing a group of local legislators, through head of the Riau sports and youth office Lukman Abbas, in an attempt to expedite the revision of a bylaw to increase the budget allocation for the construction of the PON venues. Agung once clarified the case to the KPK in July 2012. He said he had never met with Lukman Abbas on the ground they were not acquainted. He added however that he had organized a meeting at the Coordinating Ministry for People`s Welfare to discuss preparations for the 2012 National Sports Week. "I held an official coordination meeting with Governor Rusli Zaini. As the coordinating minister for people`s welfare, I invited him to the meeting," he said in July 2012. He also denied that he had received Rp500 million in cash to increase the budget for the construction of PON facilities. "There is no request for extra budget. What is there is a request for the expedited realization of budget which has run slowly," he said. Besides Rusli, the KPK also has named 13 other suspects in the graft case, 10 of them members of the Riau provincial legislative council (DPRD). Three of the local legislators, Faisal Aswan of the Golkar Party faction, M Dunir of the Nation`s Awakening Party (PKB) faction and Taufan Andoso of the National Mandate Party (PAN) faction, have been sentenced to four years` imprisonment each. The three other suspects are former head of the Riau provincial youth and sports office Lukman Abbas, the head of the office`s sports facility and infrastructure section, Rka Dharma Putri, and employee of state construction firm PT Pembangunan Perumahan (PP) Rahmat Syaputra. Lukman was sentenced to five years in jail and ordered to pay Rp200 million in fines, or face an extra three months in prison, for bribing Rp900 million to the legislators and taking a bribe of Rp700 million from building contractor PT Adhi Karya and joint operation contractors in the project.