West Bandung Acting Regent Hengky Kurniawan Admits Aa Umbara Wasn't Involved In The COVID-19 Social Assistance

Acting Regent of West Bandung Hengky Kurniawan/ANTARA PHOTOS

BANDUNG - The Acting Regent of West Bandung Hengky Kurniawan admitted that he was never involved in the handling of COVID-19 by the inactive West Bandung Regent Aa Umbara, who is now a defendant in corruption in the procurement of COVID-19 social assistance.

In fact, Hengky Kurniawan admitted that he did not hold any position in the structure of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force for West Bandung Regency, West Java, when the Task Force was led by Aa Umbara.

"Last year in the decree, I was not included in the task force, and was never invited to a meeting about COVID-19," Hengky said during a witness examination hearing at the Bandung Corruption Court, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, August 25.

He admitted that he did not know anything about the process of procuring social assistance for handling COVID-19 in West Bandung Regency, which is now a corruption case.

However, Hengku knows M Totoh Gunawan as a service provider for the procurement of social assistance goods, who is now a defendant with Aa Umbara. The reason, said Hengky, was that Totoh was his team member when he advanced with Aa Umbara in the West Bandung Pilkada.

"After (the election) I never communicated, nor did I know about this social assistance, who won the tender, I knew that Totoh was a chicken farm entrepreneur," said Hengky.

Apart from the COVID-19 issue, Hengky claimed that he had never been further involved in government policies during his 2.5 years as Deputy Regent.

"So regarding the discussion of the 2019 2020 and 2021 APBD, I have never been involved, I don't have a program in the APBD, nor have I ever had a policy issue," he said.

During that time, Hengky admitted that he was only in charge of representing Aa Umbara if the person concerned was prevented from visiting official invitations.

"If the plenary session, for example, Pak Aa is unable to attend, I will attend, and other activities," he said.

"If I was waiting for a task from him, but when discussing the program regarding the APBD, I was not involved," he added.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Panel of Judges Surachmat asked whether Hengky knew that the social assistance corruption was detected by the KPK when there was a rotten social assistance package. Hengky said he didn't know, but he knew about the rotten social assistance.

"Do you know about the rotten social assistance, do you know," said Judge Surachmat.

"I know, but if that was the beginning of this case, I don't know, I know about the rotten chicken because it went viral on TV," said Hengky.