House told to set up committee on controversial ministerial fund

Yogyakarta, NU Online
The House of Representatives (DPR) must set up a special committee to look into a controversy over the transfer of non-budgetary funds from the Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry to political parties’ coffers ahead of the 2004 presidential polls, a political expert said.

"The special committee must conduct a wide-ranging probe and ensure that no political interests will intervene in the ongoing legal process," IGN AA Ari Dwipayana of the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM) said on Tuesday.<>

He said the special committee would also function as the political controller of the government as law could not be upheld without the government’s strong intention.

Antara state news agency reported, the controversy surfaced after former National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman Amien Rais acknowledged that former marine resources and fisheries minister Rokhmin Dahuri who is a suspect in the graft case had transferred money to the party’s coffers.

Rokhmin, who served under president Megawati Soekarnoputri, has been charged with misappropriating Rp11.5 billion from the ministry’s development fund between April 2002 and March 2004.

Amien said he accepted Rp200 million from Rokhmin in the form of eight checks, which he submitted to the party’s treasurer. He said the party received another Rp200 million from Rokhmin through a member of the party’s 2004 election campaign team.

Amien who was also 2004 presidential hopeful said he believed that other presidential candidates had also received money from Rokhmin for their presidential campaigns in 2004. However, the  Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono camp has flatly denied the allegations.

Commenting on a meeting between President Yudhoyono and Amien Rais at the Halim Perdanakusuma Airport before the former’s departure to Malaysia on Monday, Ari said the meeting would not solve substantial things.

Therefore, he expressed hope that the communication between President Yudhoyono and Amien Rais would not be a model of customary solution such was in the case of ’rivalry’ between former minister/state secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra and former justice and human rights minister Hamid Awaluddin. (dar)