TWO OFFICIAL NAMED SUSPECTS IN WEBSITE GRAFT
The Jakarta Post - 27 Oktober 2008
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Two senior officials at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry have been named as suspects by the Attorney General's Office (AGO) in a corruption case involving some Rp 400 billion in state losses. Ministry director general of legal administration, Syamsuddin Manan Sinaga, and his predecessor Zulkarnain Yunus, stand accused of embezzling the state money from their offices since 2001.  AGO spokesman Jasman Pandjaitan told a press conference Friday that they only identified the suspects by their initials, ZY and SMS. Syamsuddin is still in office while Zulkarnain served in the position from 2002 until 2006. The AGO announced the investigation into the case last week.

The case centers on the embezzlement of fees acquired from a legal administration system run by the ministry. The system has been operational since 2001 and is accessible through the ministry's website www.sisminbakum.com .  Legal entities wishing to organize their businesses through the website can nominate notaries to pay their fees for the services. For example, determining profits online costs Rp 250,000 while establishing an entity costs Rp 1 million.  Every day the directorate general receives an average of 200 applications from notaries throughout the country, to access the website.  Before 2007, the monthly revenue from the access fee reached Rp 5 billion. The amount has since soared to around Rp 9 billion per month.  Jasman said the payments for the service "went to certain people and a private company, PT Sarana Rekatama Dinamika (SRD), and not to the state coffers".

PT SRD is the provider of the IT system used in the ministry's legal administration system.  "SRD received 90 percent of all the revenue from access fees, another 4 percent went to the employees' cooperatives and the remaining 6 percent was given out to officials at the directorate general," Jasman said.  The directors general received an average of Rp 10 million per month from the funds, Jasman said, while their secretaries earned around Rp 5 million.  "Directors were given Rp 2 million each and the head of subdirectorates received around Rp 1.5 million per month."  He said the suspects are being investigated under the 2001 Corruption Law.

Source : The Jakarta Post - www.thejakartapost.com