Nadiem Makarim sentenced to 10 years in prison, proven corruption of Chromebooks

JAKARTA - The Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology for the period 2019-2024, Nadiem Anwar Makarim, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being proven guilty of corruption related to the procurement of Chromebooks.

Presiding Judge Purwanto Abdullah stated that Nadiem was proven to have abused his authority in the alleged corruption case of the education digitization program in the form of the procurement of Chromebooks and Chrome Device Management (CDM) laptops in the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2019-2022.

"It is stated that the defendant Nadiem Anwar Makarim has been proven to be legally and convincingly guilty of committing a corruption crime together, as charged by the public prosecutor," said the Chief Justice when reading the verdict in the Corruption Crime Court (Tipikor) at the Central Jakarta District Court (Jakpus), Tuesday, June 30, reported by ANTARA.

In addition to imprisonment, Nadiem was also sentenced to a fine of Rp. 1 billion with the provision that if not paid, it will be replaced (subsider) with imprisonment for 190 days.

Not only prison sentences and fines, the panel of judges also imposed an additional penalty in the form of payment of compensation to Nadiem worth Rp809.59 billion, a 5-year prison sentence.

The substitute money was imposed on Nadiem after it was proven that he had received Rp809.59 billion in money from PT Aplikasi Karya Anak Bangsa (PT AKAB) through PT Gojek Indonesia.

It is stated that most of PT AKAB's money comes from Google's investment of US$786.99 million.

In that case, the Chief Justice said Nadiem was proven to have abused his authority, causing a loss of state funds worth IDR 1.56 trillion.

The corruption was allegedly carried out, among others, by carrying out the procurement of learning facilities based on information and communication technology in the form of Chromebooks and CDM in the 2020, 2021, and 2022 budget years, which were not in accordance with the procurement planning and procurement principles.

The actions of the founder of one of the technology companies were stated to have been carried out, among others, together with three other defendants who have been sentenced in different trials, namely Ibrahim Arief alias Ibam, Mulyatsyah and Sri Wahyuningsih, as well as Jurist Tan, who is currently still at large.

Thus, Nadiem was proven to have violated the crime stipulated in Article 3 in conjunction with Article 18 of Law (UU) Number 31 of 1999 concerning the Eradication of Corruption as amended and supplemented by Law Number 20 of 2001 jo. Article 55 paragraph (1) of the Criminal Code.

Meanwhile, the verdict handed down by the panel of judges was much lighter than the prosecutor's demand. Previously, Nadiem was charged with a prison sentence of 18 years, a fine of Rp1 billion, 190 days in prison, and a substitute money of Rp5.67 trillion, 9 years in prison.