Witness Says Juliari Has Received Social Assistance Fee Worth IDR 11.2 Billion

Former Minister of Social Affairs Juliari Batubara (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Former Minister of Social Affairs Juliari Batubara is said to have received IDR 11.2 billion as a fee for the procurement of the COVID-19 basic food assistance.

"In the first round, the amount of deposit fees for stages 1, 3, community, 5, 6 was IDR 14.014 billion for the deposit fee and it has been submitted 5 times to Mr. Juliari for IDR 11.2 billion", said the former Procurement Commitment Making Officer COVID-19 food aid assistance Matheus Joko Santoso at the Jakarta Corruption Court (Tipikor), reported by Antara, Monday, June 7.

Joko said this when he was a witness for the defendant, former Social Minister Juliari Batubara, who was charged with accepting bribes of IDR 32.482 billion from 109 companies providing social assistance for COVID-19.

Joko is tasked with quoting IDR 10 thousand per package of basic necessities as a deposit fee and IDR 1.000 per package of basic necessities as an operational fee from vendors providing basic food assistance. The budget ceiling per package itself is IDR 300 thousand per package with the number of packages per stage is 1.9 million packages.

The first round of providing basic food assistance took place in April-June 2020 for 6 stages of procurement.

"I handed it over directly to Mr. Adi Wahyono, Mr. Adi to Mr. Eko or Mrs. Selvy", added Joko.

Eko is Eko Budi Santoso, who is Juliari's aide, while Selvy is Selvy Nurbaety, who is Juliari's personal secretary.

"I confirmed to the defendant to confirm whether the money given to Mr. Eko and Mrs. Selvy had been received or not, then from several meetings or before (Juliari) we were also asked to continue collecting fees until June-November", said Joko.

However, Joko admitted that he never submitted the fee directly.