The defendant in the Sarung-Mukena Social Assistance Corruption case returned Rp90 million to the Mataram District Court.

MATARAM - Rusandi as the defendant in the alleged corruption case for the distribution of social assistance (bansos) for sarung and mukena in the 2024 fiscal year in West Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara, handed over Rp90 million in cash to the Mataram District Prosecutor's Office.

Head of the Mataram District Attorney's Intelligence Section, Ida Made Oka Wijaya, confirmed the submission of the money worth Rp90 million from the defendant Rusandi.

"Yes, that's right. It's a form of entrustment from the defendant Rusansi that we follow up by entrusting it to a temporary shelter account," he said as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, May 26.f

Regarding the status of the cash with a nominal of Rp90 million from the defendant Rusandi, Made Oka admitted that his party had not been able to determine this.

"Of course, the team will first review this as money by looking at the facts in the trial," he said.

However, Made Oka said that this deposit was a personal initiative from the defendant Rusandi. The prosecutor also saw it as a good faith from the defendant.

"For this reason, later the good faith of the defendant will be included as part of the consideration of the demand," he said.

The handover of Rp90 million in cash to the Mataram District Attorney was received directly by the Head of the Special Criminal Section of the Mataram District Attorney, I Made Juri Imanu.

The party represented in the submission was the defendant's wife accompanied by the legal advisory team of Rusandi.

Sudirman, as the party representing the legal advisory team, explained that the Rp90 million was a flag loan from another defendant, namely Ahmad Zainuri.

"So, the money we hand over today is the flag loan fee, 5 percent of the nominal procurement of sarung and mukena," he said.

Because Ahmad Zainuri was unable to work on the main funds of his mind (pokir) as a member of the West Lombok DPRD, he borrowed three company flags belonging to Rusandi.

"Yes, he (Ahmad Zainuri) is a member of the board, because it is impossible to work on projects from his own pokir, he borrowed the flag of our client company with the promise of a 5 percent fee from the procurement value," said Sudirman.

The three companies owned by Rusandi that were borrowed by Ahmad Zainuri for the procurement of sarung and mukena with a budget value of IDR 1.7 billion are named CV Sandy Mulya Utama, CV Widya Cahaya Permata, and CV Nauval Gafin.

Sudirman also conveyed that the return of Rp90 million was part of his client's good faith who did not want to enjoy the money from corruption.

"Actually, 5 percent of the procurement value is Rp88,796,600, but our client said just let it be Rp90 million," he said.

He continued that Rusandi as the owner of the company borrowed by the defendant Ahmad Zainuri, handed over the account number of three of his companies to Ahmad Zainuri.

"At that time, the procurement money was disbursed from the social service sent to three company accounts of our client, it was a total of Rp. 1.7 billion. After receiving it, Ahmad Zainuri who knew there was a disbursement, immediately asked our client to send it. So, it was just a stopover," he said.

The delivery was also requested by Ahmad Zainuri periodically in 2024. There are some personal accounts of Ahmad Zainuri and there are also accounts of children from Ahmad Zainuri.

"The money was transferred to buy a Fortuner car, a chicken cage business, and travel expenses. All of them were sent periodically in 2024," said Sudirman.

From this confession, he said that his client had given testimony along with evidence of the transfer in front of the panel of judges in the subsequent trial at the Corruption Crime Court at the Mataram District Court, Monday (25/5).

"All the evidence of the transfer to Ahmad Zainuri has been submitted to the panel of judges at the hearing yesterday Monday," he said.

In this case, the prosecutor's office has collected the results of the audit of the calculation of state financial losses (PKKN) from the West Lombok Inspectorate with a value of Rp. 1.7 billion.

Losses occurred in the process of distributing 10 procurement packages with a value of Rp. 200 million each. The distribution was carried out through the Social Empowerment Division of the West Lombok Social Affairs as many as eight packages and the rest through the social rehabilitation division.

The issue of corruption allegedly emerged from a survey of commodity prices and the preparation of own estimated prices (HPS). The suspicion is related to the inflation of commodity prices by referring to the West Lombok price unit standard (SSH) in 2023.

The budget for the 10 problematic procurement packages at the West Lombok Dinsos comes from the West Lombok DPRD's main thoughts (pokir) fund in 2024.