Allegations Of Deviations In The Retribution Of Benuo Taka Port, East Kalimantan, 15 Witnesses Examined Including ASN Penajam

Illustration of parking retribution is one of the regional revenues. (Between)

The Prosecutor's Office is investigating allegations of irregularities in regional retribution funds collected from loading and unloading activities at Benuo Taka Port, Penajam Paser Utara (PPU), East Kalimantan (Kaltim). A number of PPU state civil servants (ASN) were examined.

Head of the Special Crimes Section (Kasi Pidsus) of the PPU Kejari, Abram Namibia Putra Tambunan, said that as many as 15 ASN related to levies on loading and unloading activities at Benuo Taka Port had been examined by the PPPU District Attorney (Kejari).

Those examined consisted of ASN serving in the Department of Transportation, Regional Revenue Agency, Regional Finance and Assets Agency, Legal Section, Benuo Taka Port Task Implementation Unit.

According to Abram, the examination of the ASN Kesyahbandaran and the Balikpapan Class I Port Authority related to sea side activities is under the authority of the agency. Port service users as retribution taxpayers, he said, were also examined as witnesses in this case. "In the investigation stage, witnesses will be summoned again for further questioning and four witnesses have been examined again," he said, confiscated by Antara.

Abraham said that special criminal investigators from the PPU Kejari in a case whose status has been raised to this investigation in the near future will ask experts to audit state losses.

The party auditing state losses in this case is the State Financial Audit (PKN) from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK). Furthermore, said Abraham, the Kejari will determine the suspect.

The findings of this case began with the PPU Kejari investigating team sniffing out indications of reduced regional income from the Benuo Taka Port levy sector of around Rp. 3 billion from 2019 to 2022. The decrease in regional income was quite large in 2019 and 2021.