Sintang District Church Grant Corruption, 4 People Arrested

PONTIANAK - The West Kalimantan High Prosecutor's Office has detained four suspects in the alleged corruption of grant funds from the Sintang Regency Government for the construction of a Pante Kosta Church in Semuntai Village, Sepauk District, for the 2018 budget year amounting to Rp299 million.

"Today the West Kalimantan Prosecutor's Investigation Team detained four suspects in the alleged corruption of grant funds for the construction of a church in Sintang Regency, West Kalimantan, which were deposited in the Pontianak Class IIA Rutan," said Head of West Kalimantan Prosecutor's Office Masyhudi in Pontianak, reported by Antara, Monday, October 4.

The four suspects, namely JM (priest), SM (PNS) and TI (Members of the West Kalimantan DPRD), and TM (members of the Sintang DPRD). Of the four suspects, two of them are DPRD members.

"In this case, our investigative team has found two pieces of evidence so that it is strong enough to detain the suspects, one of which is the result of the BPKP audit with a loss of Rp. 241 million," he said.

The allegation of corruption in the church construction grant funds was because it did not go through procedures or according to applicable regulations, such as no proposal submission and no verification so that the grant aid was immediately disbursed.

"What is even more fatal is that this grant aid was sent to the personal account number of one of the four suspects," he said.

Kajati West Kalimantan added that the disclosure of the case proved that his party was not playing games in handling corruption cases in West Kalimantan. "Anyone who violates the law will be dealt with firmly indiscriminately," he said.

"The purpose of the grant is so that the congregation can comfortably worship, but instead the four suspects were corrupted," he said.

Meanwhile, the legal adviser for the suspects JM and SM, Raymundus Loin, said that his party was not satisfied with the decision of the West Kalimantan Prosecutor's Investigation Team which named his client as a suspect and immediately detained him.

"In this case, we will conduct a pretrial regarding the detention of our client," he said.

He added that his party would prove in court that his client was innocent in this case. "In this case we reject everything, so we will admit the pretrial because it should still be a witness status," he said.