South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office Names 3 New Suspects In The Makassar PDAM Corruption Case, Directly Sent Into Detention

Suspect HA (two right) was led by investigators to be detained in prison after being named a suspect in the alleged corruption case of using Makassar PDAM/ANTARA/M Darwin Fatir funds.

The South Sulawesi High Prosecutor's Team (Pidum) has again named three new suspects in the alleged corruption case in the use of tantiem payment funds and bonuses for the production services of the Makassar City Regional Drinking Water Company (PDAM) from 2017-2019.

"After further investigation, investigators have found two pieces of evidence of the involvement of the three suspects, as media friends have seen investigators have named three suspects," said Deputy Head of South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office Zet Tadung Allo as quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, June 13.

The three new suspects, namely HA (Hamzah Ahmad) are former President Director of PDAM Makassar for 2018 to 2019 profit. Furthermore, TP (Tito Paranoan) was the former Acting Director of Finance PDAM in 2019 for 2018 profit.

Then AA (Asdar Ali) former PDAM Finance Director in 2020 for 2019 profit. Currently, AA is still the Technical Director at Perusda for drinking water belonging to the Makassar City Government.

The suspects, he said, allegedly used a profit for the 2018-2019 financial year of more than Rp. 19.1 billion. At that time, PDAM was still experiencing cumulative losses, according to the BPKP calculation. From the actions of the suspect, it has harmed the state's finances with the amount of money that has been divided.

In addition, in 2019 PDAM will get profit or profit, but to use the profit, a board of directors meeting that is approved by the Supervisory Board must be held by the mayor.

In the procedure through discussion or the board of directors meeting, it should be recorded in the meeting minutes. In fact, in 2019 for 2018 to 2020 profit and 2019 profit, a discussion was carried out regarding the application for determining the use of profit and profit sharing.

However, the meeting proposing the use of PDAM's profit to the mayor. In addition, the construction of a profit use decree by the mayor's Office (Pj) until the disbursement is carried out within one day so that it does not go through the verification and review stages.

Even though the Makassar City PDAM has received a profit, the board of directors should have paid attention to accumulated losses since the establishment of the Makassar City PDAM before proposing to use profits. The suspects also did not heed Government Regulation number 54 of 2017.

The suspect assumed that in the current year the activities that were attempted to get profit, while the accumulation of losses were not his responsibility but the responsibility of the previous board of directors.

"From that assumption, they are entitled to payment of bonuses and bonuses or production services which are one unit of the proposed use of profits," he explained.

After being named suspects, they were taken to the Makassar Class 1 A Penitentiary (Lapas) to undergo detention for 20 days from June 13 to July 2, 2023. Investigators named the three suspects after obtaining two sufficient pieces of evidence related to allegations of corruption.

Previously, investigators from the South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office named two suspects, each former President Director of PDAM Makassar HYL (Haris Yasin Limpo) and former Finance Director of PDAM Makassar IA (Irawan Abadi). Both of them have become defendants and are currently undergoing trial proceedings at the Makassar Corruption District Court.