Home Affairs Minister Fed Up With Graft-Tainted Governors

Anita Rachman & Camelia Pasandaran | January 19, 2011

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi has painted a bleak picture of the country’s regional heads, saying too many have been implicated in graft scandals.

“Among the 155 regional heads who have been named graft suspects, as of today, 17 of them are [current and former] governors,” Gamawan said during his meeting with Committee I of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD).

In the latest scandal, Bengkulu Governor Agusrin Najamuddin is facing up to 20 years in prison for allegedly embezzling Rp 20.16 billion ($2.2 million) from the province’s coffers.

Ministry spokesman Rey Donny Zar Moene later explained that the figures cited by the minister spanned cases from 2004 to 2011, and that some of the suspects had already been tried, were being tried or were being questioned as witnesses.

Among them is North Sumatra Governor Syamsul Arifin, who was arrested in October in connection with alleged corruption committed while he was head of Lankat district.

In August, the former governor of Riau Islands, Ismeth Abdullah, was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in a procurement scam that cost the government Rp 98.6 billion.

Also included in the list of graft suspects are Rudy Arifin, governor of South Kalimantan, and Awang Farouk, governor of East Kalimantan.

Rey said the president had already ordered investigations into the listed governors.

Gamawan, meanwhile, urged the issue be taken seriously, calling for closer monitoring of regional heads not only after they are elected but also during election campaigning.

He said candidates in regional elections were known to spend vast amounts of money on their campaigns.

He said some campaign expenditures he had reviewed reached as high as Rp 100 billion, “when, in fact, a governor can only earn about Rp 6 billion during their five-year term in office.”

Gamawan said salaries for governors were Rp 8.6 million a month on average. With additional incentives, such as for helping meet tax collection targets, governors could take home anywhere between Rp 34 million to Rp 90 million per month.

The minister cited Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo to illustrate a hypothetical case.

“Let’s say, Pak Fauzi Bowo gets Rp 100 million per month, plus benefits. He could earn Rp 1.2 billion per year. In five years, he could earn Rp 6 billion,” he said.

Siti Zuhro, an analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said so-called investors supported candidates running for regional elections, who would later ask for the favor to be returned after their candidates were elected.

“Once they are regional leaders, they would work for the investors’ interests,” she said. “This fact just shows how our regional elections have been tainted by money politics and opportunism.”

The minister said that he was increasingly concerned about how pervasive corruption had become. “Every week, there is a regional leader who is named as a [graft] suspect,” he said.

Gamawan said his ministry was ready to hold a special meeting with the DPD to discuss the regional elections, with the government currently re-evaluating the entire monitoring system for all polls.

He said multiple monitoring systems were being looked at, including by the public and Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).