Corruption Cases Of The Ministry Of Youth And Sports Project In South Sumatra, 12 Suspects With Ex-Head Status

12 suspects in the alleged corruption case of the Kemenpora program sports facility construction project who were arrested by the police have the status of a former village head in South Sumatra. (Between)

South Sumatra Police (Sumsel) arrested 12 suspects in the alleged corruption case of the construction project for the Ministry of Youth and Sports (Kemenpora) sports facilities for the 2015 fiscal year.

Director of the Special Criminal Investigation Directorate of the South Sumatra Police, Kombes Pol. Barly Ramadhany said the dozens of suspects were former village heads in South Sumatra.

They have the initials ZA, HA, IN, UM, AB, RA, SY, HU, SU, who are former village heads in Ogan ilir Regency. Furthermore, the suspects FY, IL and HB as former village heads of Ogan Komering Ilir Regency.

The suspects were arrested by the South Sumatra Regional Police for the period August-September 2022, after receiving instructions from the adequacy of several pieces of evidence.

The evidence includes the 2015 Persekmenpora 0482 concerning Technical Guidelines for Facilitation of Sports Fields in Villages, the 2015 Ministry of Youth and Sports Budget Implementation List (DIPA), proposals for request for assistance, and verification reports.

Barly said that the evidence was obtained considering the arrests of these suspects were the result of the development of the same case in the Empat Lawang and South OKU Regencies.

"So there are 13 village heads who were named as suspects in Ogan Ilir and OKI, but one died so there were only 12 people. Then there was also one third party or the Contractor for the Development of the funding project from the Ministry of Youth and Sports, with the initials ZA who was named a suspect," he said in Palembang, South Sumatra, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, October 26.

Barly explained, in 2015-2016 the construction of sports facilities in the form of mini soccer fields was spread to 11 villages in Ogan Ilir Regency and three villages in Ogan Komering Ilir.

The construction of the sports facility is as requested by the suspects as an effort to foster the interest of the sports talent of the village community, along with the program of the Indonesian Ministry of Youth and Sports.

Then, the sports facility was built with funding sourced from grant funds from the Indonesian Ministry of Youth and Sports totaling IDR 1.6 billion in the 2015 fiscal year.

However, based on the results of the investigator's examination, said Barly, it turned out that in the construction of the sports facility there were irregularities ranging from administrative matters such as the completeness of proposals and reporting of the Expenditure Budget Draft (RAB), to the implementation of field development work carried out by the suspects.

"Then physical checks and the fact is that it is true that there is a reduction in the volume of sports facilities which is not 100 percent of what the suspects put forward and is not in accordance with the technical guidelines for sports facilities at the Ministry of Youth and Sports," he said.

It is known that based on the calculation of the BPKP Representative for South Sumatra Province on these irregularities, it has caused state losses of Rp. 289.07 million for development in OKI Regency, and Rp. 1.049 billion in Ogan Ilir Regency.

For their actions, the suspects were charged with Article 2 Paragraph (1) or Article 3 Juncto Article 18 of Law 1999 concerning the eradication of criminal acts of corruption, in conjunction with Article 55 paragraph (1) of the 1st Criminal Code.

"After being declared P21, the case file will be immediately transferred to the Public Prosecutor and then the suspect can be tried at trial," he said.