Attorney General Announces Case Of Alleged Corruption In PT PLN Tower Increases Investigation

Attorney General ST Burhanuddin/PHOTO Puspenkum AGO

JAKARTA - Attorney General Sanitiar Burhanuddin stated that the case of alleged corruption in the procurement of towers or transmission towers of PT PLN (Persero) in 2016 has been investigated.

"With the discovery of facts of unlawful acts or abuse of authority, opportunity, or facilities available to him because of his position or position, this case has been raised to the investigation stage," said Burhanuddin as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, July 25.

PT PLN (Persero) in 2016 had tower procurement activities of 9,085 tower sets with a work budget of IDR 2,251,592,767,354 or IDR 2.25 trillion.

In its implementation, PT PLN (Persero), the Indonesian Tower Development Association (Aspatindo), and 14 tower procurement providers in 2016 have committed acts against the law or abused the authority, opportunity, or existing facilities. The procurement process for the transmission tower is suspected of causing state financial losses.

Burhanuddin explained that the investigative team found a number of facts of unlawful acts or abuse of authority, opportunity, or facilities after conducting the search.

"The search activity obtained evidence in the form of documents and electronic evidence," he explained.

A number of these evidences are in the form of procurement planning documents that were not made using the 2015 list of selected providers (DPT) and improvements in tower procurement.

Based on information received from the Attorney General's Office, the document used should have been a DPT made in 2016. However, the 2016 DPT was never made.

PT PLN (Persero) in the procurement process always accommodates requests from Aspatindo so that it affects the results of the auction and the execution of the work, which is monopolized by PT Bukaka, because the Director of Operations of PT Bukaka also serves as Chairman of Aspatindo.

PT Bukaka and 13 other tower providers who are members of ASPATINDO have carried out work within the contract period of October 2016-October 2017) with a work realization of 30 percent.

Furthermore, in the period November 2017-May 2018, tower providers continued to carry out tower procurement work without legal standing. This condition forced PT PLN (Persero) to carry out a work addendum in May 2018 which contained an extension of the contract period for one year.

PT PLN (Persero) and the provider made a second addendum to increase the volume from 9,085 towers to around 10,000 tower sets and extend the work time until March 2019 on the grounds that the work has not been completed. It was found an additional allocation of 3,000 tower sets outside the contract and addendum.