KPK Supervisory Board Asked To Intervene In Finding Proposal For Official Car Procurement Budget

KPK Leadership and Supervisory Board in a handover ceremony some time ago (Wardhany Tsa Tsia / VOI)

JAKARTA - Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has asked the Supervisory Board of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to investigate proposals for official car procurement budgets for leaders and structural officials at the institution.

ICW researcher, Kurnia Ramadhan, encouraged Tumpak Hatorangan cs to summon five KPK leaders to question the procurement budget which recently caused a polemic.

"ICW encourages the supervisory board to immediately summon the KPK leadership regarding the addition of official car facilities. If this is done, the public hopes that the Supervisory Board can explore, especially regarding who initiated the addition of facilities for KPK leaders and structural officers and whether this agreement was produced collectively or only a few. Just the leadership, "said Kurnia in a written statement quoted on Monday, October 19.

The KPK is also urged firmly to stop the process of discussing the purchase of this official car. This is because the KPK's statement which stated that it would review the discourse gave the impression of multiple interpretations for the public. "It is not impossible when this issue subsides, the discussion on adding this facility will be continued," he said.

Because this kind of thing was said by Kurnia that the KPK leadership in the era of Firli Bahuri had already done in connection with the plan to increase the leadership's salary. "At that time, the leadership's statement seemed to refuse, but it is suspected that the discussion will continue," said Kurnia.

According to Kurnia, the discussion about official cars must be stopped immediately so that it does not appear in the public that the current KPK only hopes for money and facilities but is not serious in eradicating corruption.

The discourse on the procurement of official cars has indeed caused polemics and has prompted a number of former KPK leaders to comment. Former Deputy Chairman of the KPK for the 2015-2019 period Saut Situmorang said that the procurement of this official car would not affect the performance of the KPK leadership. He even said that during his tenure, he only used a Toyota Innova car, not a car with a price of billions of rupiah.

"It has nothing to do directly with the performance of the leadership, for example OTT (Hand-Catch Operation) and other performances. I was riding the Innova for four years, it's safe," said Saut in his statement.

The same thing was also conveyed by former Deputy Chairman of the KPK for the 2011-2015 period, Bambang Widjojanto. According to him, the procurement of this car would be inefficient and effective because it would not have a direct impact on the quality of corruption eradication in Indonesia.

The procurement of this official car, said Bambang, is also considered not to set an example for other institutions because the KPK should be an institution that upholds efficiency, effectiveness, and upholds integrity and simplicity.

In addition, this procurement is also deemed inappropriate from the management side because the KPK has been built with a single salary system in which there is a transportation allowance. "So based on that point there should no longer be the provision of vehicle facilities because it will be redundant," said Bambang.

Meanwhile, the former Chairman of the KPK for the 2011-2015 period Abraham Samad assessed that instead of the KPK procuring official cars, the budget should be diverted to improve work to eradicate corruption, including increasing human resources in the institution.

"For example like this, increasing human resources. The budget is used to increase the human resources of investigators and investigators," said Samad to reporters.

This advice was given by Samad because he knew that the anti-graft agency had to deal with corruption cases in 34 provinces in Indonesia. However, so far the KPK does not have adequate human resources, so this has made the handling of corruption cases slow due to the lack of investigators and investigators.

"Therefore, in my opinion, the budget is better used for that, to increase human resources and increase the number of investigators and investigators so that these cases can run," he said.

Previously, the KPK emphasized that the 2021 budget proposal for the procurement of official cars was carried out with the aim of supporting the implementation of the duties and functions of leaders, adults, and structural officials. This is guided by the Regulation of the Minister of Finance Number: 150 / PMK.06 / 2014 regarding the planning for the need for state property.

"The submission process has gone through a mechanism since the basic number review, which includes the previous year's review and the basic needs for operational spending," said KPK Secretary General Cahya H Harefa during a press conference at the KPK building, Jakarta, quoted by Antara Friday, October 16.

It's just that, because polemics continue to occur in the community, including being criticized by former leaders, the KPK then decided to postpone and conduct a discussion again regarding the procurement of this official car.

"We really heard all the input from the public and therefore decided to review the budget discussion process for the procurement of the official car for the office and we are currently conducting a review to ensure compliance with applicable regulations," he said.

Based on information, the budget for the official car of KPK chairman Firli Bahuri is worth Rp1.45 billion. Meanwhile, the four deputy chairmen of the KPK each receive a budget of Rp1 billion.