The Attorney General's Office Examines Ministry Of Trade Officials Regarding The Cooking Oil Mafia Case

Head of the Center for Legal Information (Kapuspenkum) Attorney General's Office Ketut Sumedana/PHOTO: Puspenkum AGO

JAKARTA - Investigators from the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes (Jampidsus) of the Attorney General's Office examined the Director of Exports of Agricultural and Forestry Products at the Directorate General of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Trade, with the initials FA, as a witness related to the alleged corruption case in CPO exports.

The Head of the Legal Information Center (Kapuspenkum) at the Attorney General's Office, Ketut Sumedana, said that witness FA was examined along with two other witnesses from the private sector.

"The witness was questioned regarding the alleged corruption case in the provision of export facilities for Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and its derivatives from January 2021 to March 2022," said Ketut in a written statement quoted by Antara, Wednesday, April 20.

Two witnesses from the private sector were questioned today (Wednesday), namely the initials of AAA as Sales Manager of PT Incasi Raya and BR as Supplay Chain Manager of PT Synergy Oil Nusantara.

"The examination of witnesses is carried out to strengthen the evidence and complete the filing in the case," said Ketut.

As previously reported, Attorney General Sanitiar Burhanuddin at a press conference yesterday announced four suspects in the case of alleged corruption in the provision of export facilities for Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and its derivatives which occurred between January 2021 and March 2022.

The four suspects, namely the Director General of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Trade, Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana. Then, Master Parulian Tumanggor as Commissioner of PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia, Stanley MA as Senior Manager of Corporate Affairs of PT Pelita Agung Agrindustri/Permata Hijau Group, and Picare Tagore Sitanggang as General Manager of the General Affairs Section of PT Musim Mas.

Burhanuddin said the case was revealed from the scarcity and increase in cooking oil prices on the market at the end of 2021. To respond to this, the government through the Ministry of Trade has taken several policies, namely domestic market obligation (DMO) and domestic price obligation (DPO) for companies. who want to export CPO and its derivative products.

However, in practice the exporting company does not fulfill the DPO (20 percent), but still gets export approval from the government.

Prosecutors suspect that Indrasari issued export permits to entrepreneurs by taking legal action. Where, the company that gets the permit is not entitled to get the permit.

The four suspects are subject to Article 2 or Article 3 of the Corruption Crime Act (Tipikor), then Article 54 paragraph (1) letter a and paragraph (2) letter abe and f of Law Number 7 of 2014 concerning Trade and/or Ministerial Decree Trade Number 129 juchto Number 170 of 2022 concerning Determination of Amounts for Distribution of Domestic Needs and Domestic Sales Prices.

Furthermore, the provisions of Chapter 2 letter a number 1 letter b in conjunction with chapter 2 letter c number 4 letter c Regulation of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade Number 02 DAGLU per 1 2022 concerning Technical Instructions for Implementation of Policies and Regulations on CPO Exports.