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An infrastructure company employee has accused members of the House of Representatives’ Budget Committee of arranging deals between Manpower Ministry and Finance Ministry officials, politicians in Papua and firms bidding for contracts.

Meanwhile, the speaker of the House has lashed out at the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) for its perceived rough treatment of committee members.

A key corruption suspect said the budget body was skimming 10 percent off the total value of the Acceleration of Infrastructure Development in Transmigration Areas (PPID) program.

The accusation was made by Dharnawati, an employee of infrastructure company Alam Jaya Papua.

She was arrested with Manpower and Transmigration Ministry official Nyoman Suisanaya, a secretary to the local transmigration area community development chief, and Dadong Irbarelawan, head of planning and evaluation, last month after giving Rp 1.5 billion ($171,000) in Idul Fitri payouts to the officials.

Dharnawati said half the payoff was to be delivered up front, but that she did not know how the money was divided.

She gave details of meetings between key figures from the Finance Ministry and the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

These included Nyoman and Sindu Malik, a retired official at the Finance Ministry.

She said they had offered to introduce him to Budget Committee head Tamsil Linrung, but that Dharnawati’s arrest by the KPK had come before the planned meeting could take place. However, she did meet with Tamsil’s staffer, Iskandar Pasojo, in April.

According to Dharnawati, the meetings resulted in a deal being struck where Rp 500 billion would be allocated for transmigration projects in Papua.

The parties standing to benefit from the budget included the heads of government bodies in Papua and companies that stood to win tenders to provide the planned infrastructure.

The deal, Dharnawati said, was that those parties were to pay an up-front commitment of 5 percent of the allocated fund, followed by a further 5 percent once the Finance Ministry had released the money.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie said on Friday that he resented the KPK’s request to meet only on the condition that Budget Committee members were not at the table.

KPK investigators are forbidden from holding non-investigative meetings with suspects.

“By acting like this, the KPK seems to be treating Budget Committee members as graft suspects,” the speaker said.

Acquiescing to the KPK’s conditions, the House has invited the commissioners for a meeting scheduled for Monday. Attendees will include the National Police Chief and Attorney General’s Office, but not members of the Budget Committee.