DLH Bandar Lampung Corruption Case, Prosecutor's Office Has Examined 80 Witnesses But Has Not Determined Suspects

Illustration of state refunds in corruption cases. (Antarananews)

LAMPUNG - Lampung High Prosecutor's Office (Kejati) has examined as many as 80 witnesses related to the alleged corruption case in collecting waste retribution at the Bandar Lampung Environmental Service (DLH) for the 2019-2021 budget year.

"So far, 80 witnesses have been examined for cases involving the DLH in Bandarlampung City regarding the alleged case of garbage retribution," said Assistant for Special Crimes (Aspidsus) at the Lampung District Attorney's Office, Hutamrin, in Bandar Lampung, Tuesday, November 1.

Hutamrin ensured that all witnesses related to this case of alleged corruption in the collection of waste retribution at the DLH Bandar Lampung will be investigated.

"Regarding whether there are big names or officials in the Bandarlampung City Government who are being examined as witnesses, we emphasize that we will examine all witnesses," he said.

He said the Lampung Attorney General's Office would continue to explore this case by continuing to open up the possibility of the results of the examination. "So it needs to be reaffirmed, whoever is involved in this case will definitely be investigated," he added.

For now, investigators from the Lampung Special Prosecutor's Office are asking for information from independent auditors and economists to determine the amount of state losses caused by this case.

"For the exact amount of state losses in this case, I don't know yet, experts will conclude later," he said.

Previously, the Lampung Attorney General's Office examined seven witnesses related to the alleged corruption case in collecting waste retribution at the Bandar Lampung DLH for the 2019-2021 budget year. The examination will be held on October 4, 2022.

From a series of examinations, the Lampung Attorney General's Office officially raised the status of handling this case to the investigation stage on September 20, 2022.

The status upgrade is based on the Investigation Order of the Head of the Lampung High Prosecutor's Office Number: Print-07/L.8/Fd.1/06/2022 dated 09 June 2022.

DLH Bandar Lampung City in this case is said to have no master data on mandatory retribution in accordance with the determination of the Head of Service (Kadis) so that it is not known the potential real income from the collection of retribution for waste services in Bandarlampung.

Then in the context of implementing the collection of waste retribution from 2019 to 2021, at the Bandar Lampung DLH it was found that there was a difference between the number of tickets printed and the number of tickets issued and the tickets handed over to the retribution collectors.

It was also found that there were facts that the results of retribution payments were collected by retribution collection officers from both the DLH and UPT for solid waste services in the sub-district which were not deposited into the regional treasury within 1 X 24 hours and there were retribution collectors who did not have an official letter of assignment.

In addition, based on the Antara report, from 2019 to 2021 it was found that the results of retribution collection were not fully deposited into the regional treasury at the Bandar Lampung DLH, but were used for other interests and personal interests.

The Prosecutor's Office found facts from 2019 to 2021 The Bandar Lampung city government through the DLH did not have mandatory retribution data based on the determination of the object of retribution and the Regional Retribution Mandatory Number (NPWRD) so that to find out the total number of retribution objects in Bandar Lampung, it was only based on the Master Data Object of retribution from collectors of the Environmental Service and UPT collectors in the District.

In this case, the alleged articles are Articles 4, 6, 7, and 8 paragraphs (1), (3), (5), and (6) concerning Bandar Lampung Mayor Regulation No. 8 concerning Procedures for Implementing Waste Collection Retribution / Cleanliness at the Environmental Service which has the potential to harm state finances.