West Sumatra Prosecutor's Office Transfers Cattle Corruption Cases To Court

Class IA Padang District Court. (ANTARA/FathulAbdi)

The Public Prosecutor at the West Sumatra High Prosecutor's Office (West Sumatra) has transferred a case of alleged corruption in the procurement of bunting cattle to the Padang Corruption Court.

"Today, the Public Prosecutor's team has transferred the case files to the Padang Corruption Court so that this case can be tried immediately," said Head of the Legal Information Section of the West Sumatra Prosecutor's Office, Farouk Fahrozi, in Padang, quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, October 19.

The transfer of case files was carried out after the Public Prosecutor's team, which is a combination of the West Sumatra Prosecutor's Office and the Padang Attorney General's Office, finished compiling the indictments for the six defendants.

The six defendants are PRS, WI, AIA, and AAP, all of whom have backgrounds as cattle procurement partners.

While the other two are DM as the power user of the budget (KPA) and FH as the technical implementing officer of the activity (PPTK) who is a state civil servant at the West Sumatra Provincial Livestock Service.

Faruok said that after the transfer of the case files, the prosecutor's team would then prepare evidence, witnesses, and the six defendants to be presented to the trial.

The alleged corruption case began when the West Sumatra Animal Husbandry and Health Service procured 2,082 flowering cows in the 2021 fiscal year.

With details as many as 1,572 local cattle and 510 cross cows that were poured into five work contracts and carried out by four different companies.

The procurement of bunting cows was rolled out by the local provincial government with the aim of being able to increase the population of livestock in West Sumatra, even in the initial contract the sound of cows must be imported from outside West Sumatra.

The project with the name the provision of seeds or livestock seeds and green animal feed has a ceiling of Rp35 billion.

However, on the way, it turned out that there was a change in the contract (adendum) to replace the cow, which at first was a pregnant cow to become a virgin cow.

"The cows were also purchased in the West Sumatra area, this action of course thwarted the government's mission to increase the population of livestock. We even found indications of price inflation," said Kajati West Sumatra Asnawi.

Based on the results of the calculation, it is known that the state losses that arose as a result of the case reached Rp7.3 billion.