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Senior Democratic Party official Sutan Bhatoegana has lashed out at allegations that he was involved in a bid-rigging scandal similar to that for which former party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin has been charged.

A livid Sutan told reporters at the House of Representatives on Friday that he had nothing to do with the case, which centers on a contract to supply solar home systems to the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry in 2009.

“I want to stress that I was in no way involved [with the project] nor acquainted with the contractors linked to it,” he said. “If you can prove that I was, I’ll give you Rp 2 billion [$220,000]. If you can’t, then you pay me Rp 500,000 and quit making things up.”

The allegation against him was raised on Thursday at the corruption trial of Ridwan Sanjaya, one of the winning contractors in the project.

Testifying at the trial, Budianto Hari Purnomo, an Energy Ministry official in charge of tendering out the project, said Sutan had promised the ministry that he would help pass a list of amendments to the Electricity Law if companies affiliated to him, including Ridwan’s, were awarded the solar contract.

However, Sutan denied that version of events. He claimed the whole incident started when two people complained to him that their companies had been unfairly disqualified from the tender and were threatening to report Energy Ministry officials to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

To resolve the dispute, Sutan said, he set up a meeting between the representatives and Jacob Purnomo, the director general of electricity at the time, who also brought along officials from the tender committee.

“It turned out the companies were qualified to follow the tender,” Sutan said. “But because by that point the winners had already been named, the director general decided that the contracts should be awarded evenly between all the companies.”

Two weeks later, though, one of the company representatives called Sutan to complain that the ministry had reneged on the deal, the legislator said. He added that he then called Jacob, who confirmed the news and said his office had no issue with being reported to the KPK.

“So I called back the two representatives and I told them that if they wanted to report to the KPK, they were welcome to because the director general and his staff believed they were in the right,” Sutan said. “So what did I do wrong? All I tried to do was resolve this case transparently, yet now I get dragged into it.”

However, he claimed he could not remember the names of the two company representatives or their firms.

The bid-rigging allegations against Sutan echo those first made against Nazaruddin, who was also a Democrat legislator. Nazaruddin has since been charged with corruption in the contract to build an athletes’ village for the recently concluded Southeast Asian Games.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie, another senior Democrat, defended Sutan, saying his version of events was more credible than the allegations. He argued there was no way that Sutan could claim to ensure the passage of the Electricity Law amendments.
Sutan Bhatoegana offered help in the passing of a law, a witness said.