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Removal from Budget Committee ‘Politically Motivated,’ Wa Ode Says
Rizky Amelia | February 04, 2012

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Graft suspect Wa Ode Nurhayati has spoken out against her removal from the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

“I see this all as being politically motivated,” Wa Ode told reporters on her way into the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) building on Friday.

Wa Ode is under investigation for allegedly receiving a Rp 6 billion ($672,000) bribe in exchange for supporting Aceh’s infrastructure budget last year.

She went further, saying that the Ethics Council, the House body charged with disciplining lawmakers, was not acting with proper independence.

“The Ethics Council is also politicized,” the young National Mandate Party (PAN) member claimed.

Wa Ode went on to say that she believed her removal from the Budget Committee was done not to preserve the credibility of the institution but to prevent her from further exposing corrupt activities going on within it.

“Essentially this was done so that I would no longer be in the Budget Committee,” she said. “That’s the only reason.”

Wa Ode again spoke with reporters after Friday’s KPK interview, saying the antigraft unit had yet to ask about any specifics of the alleged crime.

“Today there were 10 questions, but they have not yet gotten into the substance of the accusations,” she said.

Nevertheless, Wa Ode said, the KPK investigators were asking questions that focused on the House of Representatives budgeting process.

“[The questions were] sharper and delved into the budget process,” she said.

According to Wa Ode, she told her interrogators about her duties on the Budget Committee, what she had done for the body and the extent of her knowledge about House processes.

“I explained everything to the investigators, what I know, what I saw, what I heard, everything. And I gave them the evidence,” she said.

Wa Ode’s attendance at the KPK had been scheduled for Thursday but was postponed by the KPK until a day later. She was collected from the Pondok Bambu detention center, where she has been kept since she was declared a suspect and taken into custody on Jan. 26.

She is said to have repaid Rp 4 billion of the bribe paid to her because she could not deliver the budget items she had promised.