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

The Attorney General’s Office has formed a nine-member team to investigate alleged corruption at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs involving inflated airfares for diplomats who traveled abroad.

The AGO plans to question 22 officials and employees from travel agencies starting today, a spokesman said on Monday.

“Six employees of various travel agencies are scheduled to come to the AGO” as questioning gets under way today, AGO spokesman Didiek Darmanto said.

Ministry officials from various divisions, including human resources, finance, the inspectorate general and secretariat also are expected to come in for interrogations until March 10, he said, declining to cite names of individuals.

“Among the travel bureaus allegedly involved in the case are Pan Travel, Sila Tour and Anugerah Dayu Wisata,” Didiek said.

Under the AGO’s procedures, a criminal investigation should be concluded within 60 days after an order was issued, and this one had started on Feb. 22, he said.

According to Arminsyah, the AGO’s director of corruption investigation, the ministry officials to be questioned include Ade Wismar Wijaya, the head of the finance division, and Priyo Iswanto, the head of the human resources division.

Indonesia Corruption Watch was the first to report the case to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), claiming the alleged inflated fares had caused the state losses of as much as Rp 6 billion ($648,000).

The AGO said the KPK had then forwarded the case to its prosecutors.

ICW also named three officials it said were involved in the scandal: Ade Wismar Wijaya, administration affairs and trip funding head Ade Sudirman, and budgetary program head Syarif Syam Arman.

The group has raised concern that the ministry will only hand out disciplinary sanctions such as dismissal and demotion to the three officials it named and will assign other officials suspected of involvement to overseas jobs to soften public pressure and avoid legal proceedings.

The ministry said it would not stand in the way of the investigation and would let the officials concerned decide whether or not they would respond to the AGO summonses.

“We have been very open to the investigation into the case since the beginning. If the officials in question ask for permission to attend the questioning, we will certainly allow them to,” ministry spokesman Teuku Fai­zasyah said.

“Everyone is the same before the law, so they need to fulfill the summonses for legal proceedings,” he added.

Teuku said he had no idea whether the summonses were sent directly to the officials or through the ministry.