Tough! TB Hasanuddin Says Budi Arie Didn't Pay Attention When Given Information Allegedly Civil Servants Involved in Online Gambling

Budi Arie Setiadi when he was still Minister of Communication and Information (Photo: BPMI Setpres/Muchlis Jr)

JAKARTA - Member of Commission I of the Indonesian House of Representatives TB Hasanuddin was not surprised if there were ASNs involved in the Online Gambling (judol) case. He had long suspected the involvement of ASNs but did not receive attention from the previous Minister of Communication and Information (Menkominfo), namely Budi Arie.

"At that time, I had identified it. It was impossible that there were no ASNs or employees of the Ministry of Communication and Information involved, but at that time it did not receive Minister Budi Arie's attention," said TB Hasanuddin, Tuesday, November 5.

Previously, Polda Metro Jaya arrested 11 suspects involved in organizing judol activities, where of the 11 suspects some came from the Ministry of Communication and Digital or Komdigi (formerly Menkominfo). As a partner of the Ministry of Communication and Information (now Komdigi), Commission I of the DPR paid serious attention to the judol phenomenon which had become very disturbing.

TB Hasanuddin explained that what he conveyed to Budi Arie when he was still Menkominfo was not without reason. This is because the Ministry of Communication and Information has the authority to block judol sites.

According to him, the judol problem should have been resolved immediately if no one played or abused their responsibilities. TB regretted the involvement of certain ministry employees in judol activities.

"Now it is proven and clear, even 16 perpetrators have been arrested by the police," said the legislator from the West Java IX electoral district.

From the development of the case of unblocking online gambling sites involving Ministry of Komdigi employees, the police have named two new suspects. Currently, a total of 16 people have been named as suspects in the case.

As many as 11 suspects in the case are Komdigi employees, while the other 5 are civilians. The profit obtained by the suspects from developing online gambling sites is IDR 8.5 million per website. They have 'developed' a thousand online gambling sites so that from their actions, the perpetrators can earn IDR 8.5 billion per month.

The Komdigi employees who are seen in this network should be tasked with blocking online gambling sites. However, they abuse their authority by actually 'developing' these sites.

"They are given the authority to block online gambling sites but do not do so," said TB Hasanuddin.

The Drone Emprit survey stated that Indonesia is ranked first as a country with 201,122 judol players. This number is far from the countries in the next positions, namely Cambodia (26,279 people), the Philippines (4,207 people), Myanmar (650 people), and Russia (448 people).

TB Hasanuddin hopes that with the arrest of 16 people and their determination as suspects in the online gambling case, this can be a new step in eradicating online gambling in Indonesia.

The member of the DPR Commission in charge of informatics affairs also hopes that the new Minister of Communication and Digital, Meutya Hafid, will clean up the internal environment of her ministry. TB Hasanuddin is optimistic considering that Meutya was previously the Chairperson of Commission I of the DPR who also has the same spirit for eradicating judol.

"The only hope now is that the new minister must immediately clean up Komdigi so that it is free from online gambling," said the retired TNI two-star general.

Law enforcement officers, especially the Police, are also asked to be firm in arresting the perpetrators who facilitate online gambling. According to him, anyone involved must be prosecuted and punished according to applicable provisions.

"And the police should not hesitate, so that no more employees are involved in cases that harm the community," said TB Hasanuddin,

For information, data from the PPATK (Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center) states that state losses due to online gambling as of March 2024 reached IDR 600 trillion. PPATK also noted that there were 168 million online gambling transactions with a turnover of IDR 327 trillion.