Cooking Oil Corruption, Attorney General Examines Former Trade Minister M Lutfi Today

JAKARTA - Investigators at the Junior Attorney General for Special Crimes (Jampidsus) on Wednesday scheduled an examination of former Minister of Trade Muhammad Lutfi as a witness in the investigation into a corruption case involving the approval of the export of crude palm oil and its derivative products, including cooking oil, with three corporations as suspects.

Head of the Center for Legal Information (Kapuspenkum) at the Attorney General's Office of the Republic of Indonesia Ketut Sumedana said the examination was scheduled for 09.00 a.m. Western Indonesian Time (WIB).

"The examination is at 09.00 a.m. WIB," said Ketut quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, August 9.

Previously, the Jampidsus investigator at the Attorney General's Office sent another summons against Lutfi, after the first summons on August 2, he was unable to attend.

The investigators sent another summons based on the Witness Summons Number: SPS-2615/F.2/Fd.2/08/2023 dated 04 August 2023.

Through his attorney, M Lutfi stated that he would attend the second summons, but there was no confirmation at what time he would appear at the Attorney General's Office Round Building.

Muhammad Lutfi was summoned as a witness to be examined in connection with the investigation into a case of alleged corruption in the provision of export facilities for crude palm oil (CPO) and its derivatives to the palm oil industry from January 2022 to April 2022.

Previously, investigators had summoned the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto as a witness in the same case.

Jampidsus investigators at the Indonesian Attorney General's Office named three palm oil companies as corporate suspects in a corruption case involving the approval of the export of crude palm oil and its derivative products, including cooking oil on Thursday last month.

The three companies are the Wilmar Group, Permata Hijau Group and the Musim Mas Group. The three were proven in this case based on the Supreme Court decision which already has permanent legal force causing state losses of IDR 6.47 trillion.

In cases of criminal acts of corruption in the provision of export facilities for CPO and its derivatives from January 2021 to March 2022, they have been tried at the Corruption Court at the Central Jakarta District Court and have permanent legal force (inkrah) at the Cassation level.

Five of the defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 5 to 8 years. The five convicts were former Director General of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Trade Indra Sari Wisnu Wardhana, member of the Assistant Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs team Lin Chen Wei, Commissioner of PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia Master Palulian Tumanggor, Senior Manager of Corporate Affair PT Victorindo Alam Lestari Stanley MA, and General Manager of General Affairs. PT Musim Mas Affair Pierre Togas Sitanggang.

In the decision of this case, there is one thing that is very important, namely the Panel of Judges views the actions of the convicts as a corporate action.

Therefore, the Panel of Judges stated that those who obtained illegal profits were corporations (places where convicts worked). Therefore, corporations must be responsible for recovering state losses due to criminal acts they have committed.

In addition, the actions of the convicts have also had a significant impact, namely the occurrence of expensive 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 the cooking oil commodity, the state is forced to disburse funds to the public in the form of direct cash assistance worth IDR 6.19 trillion.