Naz Firms Still in Business: Fitra

Markus Junianto Sihaloho

The fallout in the saga of a top graft convict continues as allegations emerge that “important people” benefited from his web of corruption while the firms complicit in his crimes remain unpunished.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) managed to win a graft conviction against Muhammad Nazaruddin in April, but none of the 38 companies affiliated to the former Democratic Party treasurer have been placed on the blacklist of the government’s Goods and Services Procurement Policy Institute (LKPP).

“The government must move quickly,” Uchok Sky Khadafi, the coordinator of the Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), said in Jakarta on Sunday.

“If the KPK investigates a company that is implicated in graft, that company shouldn’t be allowed to operate. It should be blacklisted.”

He cited the Jakarta-based company Ananto Jempieter, which Nazaruddin used to win a Rp 28 billion ($2.95 million) project from Sriwijaya State Polytechnic in Palembang to procure lab equipment in 2011.

The project was one of many from various universities won by Nazaruddin and scrutinized by the KPK. The KPK suspects that the projects were mired in graft after former Nazaruddin underling Mindo Rosalina Manulang told investigators about arrangements and fees in various universities with Democratic Party legislator Angelina Sondakh, who is now a graft suspect.

Uchok said that Anugrah Nusantara and Anak Negeri, firms that Nazaruddin allegedly used to amass wealth from various projects, have also not been blacklisted.

Meanwhile, Bambang Soesatyo, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, said that Nazaruddin and his wife, Neneng Sri Wahyuni, a fugitive who was recently arrested after a year on the run, committed organized crime to rob state funds.

Bambang alleged that the graft surrounding the construction of an athletes’ village in Palembang and the Hambalang sports center in Bogor were organized crimes carried out by important figures.

He added that the two cases involved the same people and the same company, the Permai Group.

“The KPK uncovered several facts in the Hambalang case when it raided the offices of the Permai Group that support their investigations into the athletes’ village case,” Bambang said on Sunday.

He said that the suspicions about the Permai Group’s involvement in other corruption cases and distribution of the ill-gotten money were strengthened by the facts that emerged at Nazaruddin’s trial, and that the Permai Group should thus be investigated for money-laundering.

“The public hopes that the KPK will quickly identify the two cases as organized crimes because the public can perceive the role of the Permai Group and the important people allegedly involved in the two crimes,” the Golkar Party politician said.

He insisted that the public would conclude that Nazaruddin did not carry out on his own the crimes he is accused of.

“These are organized crimes committed by a group of important and powerful people,” he said.