•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

As the House of Representatives’ investigation into the PT Bank Century bailout ends, the public may soon learn who is to blame and whether any of the funds disbursed went to finance a presidential election campaign, information that could alter the face of Indonesian politics and disrupt President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration.

After more than a month of questioning top financial officials, convicted embezzlers, politicians and expert witnesses — including key figures like Vice President Boediono, who was the central bank governor at the time of the bailout, and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati — the 30-strong special investigation committee is now left with the arduous task of voting on what findings and recommendations to forward to the full House.

“We are going to map out and harmonize all the data we received in the hearings. It all will be done on Saturday,” the committee’s chairman, Golkar Party’s Idrus Marham, said on Wednesday.

Political analyst Sulastio, director of the Indonesian Parliament Center, claimed he had been personally informed that the committee already had the names of a number of figures “suspected of violating laws.”

The official justification for salvaging Bank Century — reiterated throughout House committee questioning by both Boediono and Sri Mulyani — was that its failure would have had a domino effect on the banking sector amid the unfolding global financial crisis and severe liquidity problems at a number of domestic banks.

But Boediono’s predecessor at the central bank, graft convict Burhanuddin Abdullah, told the committee that the bank’s collapse would not have posed a systemic threat.

Massive withdrawals of more than Rp 5 trillion ($540 million) were made from the bank shortly after it was bailed out and put under the control of the Deposit Insurance Agency (LPS). It is now no secret that the bank’s owners had looted the bank, leaving behind debts for the government to pick up.

Former Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the House committee that upon learning of what had occurred at the lender, he had instructed the National Police to arrest Robert Tantular, Bank Century’s majority shareholder.

Tantualar is now serving a five-year prison sentence for embezzlement.

Sulastio said finding exactly where the bulk of the money landed would be a tough job.

“What the committee intends to do is focus on whether or not any of the money ended up financing a presidential election campaign,” he said.

“It is going to be tough because the transactions were mostly done in cash. Money transfers, however, would be easy to track because transfers would be registered by the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center [PPATK].”

His statements came a day after a member of the president’s ruling coalition reversed position and pledged to support the government’s view that the controversial bailout was necessary.

Taufik Kurniawan, secretary general of the National Mandate Party (PAN), said his party now agreed that the failure of the troubled bank in November 2008 would have posed an unacceptable “systemic” threat, in essence agreeing that the bailout was necessary.

With the support of PAN’s two legislators, Yudhoyono’s Democrats now hold sway over 15 members of the special committee — half of the votes — including eight of its own lawmakers, three from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and two from the National Awakening Party (PKB).

There has also been much speculation that Aburizal Bakrie, a former senior cabinet minister under Yudhoyono and the current chairman of the Golkar Party, could attempt to benefit from the case by helping to engineer the ouster of Sri Mulyani. Aburizal and Sri Mulyani have previously clashed over the business dealings of the controversial Bakrie conglomerate.

However, Aburizal has denied any such efforts to oust Sri Mulyani, and Yudhoyono has come out and said that his finance minister is not going anywhere.