Law Enforcement Agencies Urged To Look Into Suspicious Accounts

Jakarta, Dec 31 (Antara) - The Center for Reporting and Analysis of Financial Transactions (PPATK) urges law enforcement agencies to be more serious in probing into suspiciously big accounts of a number of heads of regional administration. The agency has expressed disappointment with lack of seriousness of the law enforcement agencies including police, prosecution office and the Corruption Eradication commission (KPK) to follow up its reports. "There is no reason for not following up the reports. At least they should look into possible tax evasion if they were reluctant to focus probe on the possible crime of the cases," PPATK chief Muhammad Yusuf told reporters here on Tuesday. Yusuf said PPATK found 8 heads of regional administrations have suspiciously big accounts and a BUMD (company owned by regional administration) was implicated in a suspicious transaction of more than Rp1 trillion with a regent. "There are two governors with transactions of around Rp200 billion and six regents with total transactions of Rp500 billion and a BUMD with transaction of Rp300 billion," he added. The data had been reported to law investigators in line with their authority including the attorney general office and police, he said. The reports also included about the methods practiced the suspected heads of regional administrations, he said. "Some heads of regional administrations have companies operating in agricultural sector, hoping that people would see and believe that he had received money from the companies. But it is unlikely that the companies would pay dividends any time other than in harvest time," he cited. One of other methods is by seeking to cover graft as a loan for their companies, he said. "There were payments from companies operating in their respective areas . There were also fee and graft from abroad but covered as loans from a certain company, but after being checked, there was no such company," he said. There are a number of other methods used to cover their illicit practices such as transfer of fund to the accounts of their wives, who have no job but as housewives. Some heads of regional administration have a number of accounts in different banks to which "graft money" were funneled in apparently to reduce the amount of payment to a single account. There were also cases of suspicious collusion between BUMDs and heads of regional administration and lawmakers, Jusuf said. Earlier PPATK reported to the attorney general office that Southeast Sulawesi Governor Nur Alam had a suspiciously large assets of Rp31.165 billion. At the same time it reported to the KPK that former Jakarta Governor Fauzi Wibowo had a total assets worth Rp59.39 billion and US$325,000 . Fauzi Wibowo was governor of Jakarta in 2007-2012 before he was defeated by Joko Widodo (now president) in his second bid for the governorship in 2013. Fauzi Wibowo was later named Indonesian ambassador to Germany by former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.