Corruption Witness For Cooking Oil, Former Trade Minister Muhammad Lutfi Responds To AGO's Call

Former trade minister Muhammad Lutfi arrived at the Indonesian Attorney General's Round Building in Jakarta, Wednesday (9/8/2023). (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Former trade minister Muhammad Lutfi, Wednesday, fulfilled the summons of the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes (Jampidsus) at the Attorney General's Office (AGO) to be examined as a witness in the investigation of corruption cases in the approval of exports of crude palm oil and its derivative products.

Based on ANTARA's monitoring, at the Jampidsus Roundabout Building, the Attorney General's Office, Wednesday, Lutfi arrived at the Attorney General's Office at around 08.57 WIB wearing a blue long-sleeved batik shirt. He arrived in a black Mitsubishi minibus and was accompanied by a colleague.

Before entering the Round Building, Lutfi waved to the media, but gave no information.

Previously, the Head of the Legal Information Center (Kapuspenkum) of the Attorney General's Office, Ketut Sumedana, said that the examination of Muhammad Lutfi was scheduled for Wednesday, 09.00 WIB.

"The examination was at 09.00 WIB," said Ketut in Jakarta, Wednesday, August 9.

The AGO has named three palm oil companies as corporate suspects in a corruption case in the approval of exports of crude palm oil and its derivative products, including cooking oil.

The three companies are Wilmar Group, Permata Hijau Group, and Musim Mas Group. All three were proven to be involved in the case based on the decision of the Supreme Court which already has permanent legal force to cause state losses of Rp6.47 trillion.

In the corruption case in the provision of crude palm oil (CPO) export facilities and their derivatives from January 2021 to March 2022, the trial has been completed at the Corruption Court (Tipikor) of the Central Jakarta District Court (PN) and has permanent legal force at the cassation level.

Five defendants were sentenced to prison within a period of 5-8 years, namely former director general (dirjen) of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) Indra Sari Wisnu Wardhana, Member of the Assistant Team of the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Lin Chen Wei, Commissioner of PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia Master Palulian Tumangor, Senior Manager of Corporate Affairs PT Victorindo Alam Lestari Stanley MA, and GM Section General Affairs of PT Musim Mas Pierre Togas Sitanggang.

In the decision of the case, there is one important thing, namely that the panel of judges assessed that the actions of the convicts were corporate actions.

Therefore, the panel of judges stated that it was the corporation where the convicts worked. Therefore, corporations must be responsible for recovering state losses due to their crimes.

In addition, the actions of the convicts also had a significant impact, namely the occurrence of expensiveness and scarcity of cooking oil, resulting in a decrease in people's purchasing power, especially for cooking oil commodities.

As a result, in order to maintain people's purchasing power for cooking oil commodities, the state was forced to disburse funds to the public in the form of direct cash assistance worth IDR 6.19 trillion.