The antigraft body has slapped a travel ban on a member of the House of Representatives’ budget committee who angered her fellow lawmakers by speaking on television about the practice of corruption that plagues the legislative body.
Wa Ode Nurhayati, a National Mandate Party (PAN) lawmaker, has been banned from leaving the country as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is currently investigating graft “linked to the budget committee”, KPK spokesman Johan Budi told The Jakarta Post.
The commission has also slapped travel bans on three other people, including Wa Ode’s staffer, Sefa Yolanda, as well as two people identified as Fat Arafiq and Haris Surahman, who are known to have come from “the private sector”.
Johan said his office had requested that the Directorate General of Immigration at the Law and Human Rights Ministry issue the travel bans on Wednesday.
Herawan Sukoaji, spokesman at the immigration directorate general, said that his office had agreed to impose the bans as requested by the KPK.
“We are currently investigating the case of the 2010 budget deliberation at the House’s budgetary body,” he said. “Since it is still a preliminary investigation, we have yet to name any suspect in the case.”
It is not known if Wa Ode would be named a suspect soon, but the KPK’s move could be seen as a sign that it is serious about investigating alleged corrupt practices in the House’s budget committee.
Previously, the commission was studying the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center’s (PPATK) findings of 21 suspicious transactions implicating the House’s budget committee. In October, KPK deputy chief Bibit Samad Riyanto said that his office has already received PPATK’s report on the 21 suspicious transactions.
In May, Wa Ode made headlines when she publicly announced that legislators had asked for bribes in exchange for assisting regional governments in securing infrastructure project funds.
Wa Ode implied that the budget committee, the House leadership and the finance minister were involved in manipulating budget allocations to favor regional administrations who had promised kickbacks. She called them “budget brokers”.
Johan, however, declined to explain the roles of the two people from the private sector in the case.
The KPK and the House’s budget committee were at loggerheads in September over whether the latter was authorized to probe the House of Representatives’ budget committee for alleged corruption linked to government projects it had approved.
The protest came from the House after its four budget committee leaders — chairman Melchias Marcus Mekeng and his deputies Mirwan Amir, Olly Dondokambey and Tamsil Linrung — were questioned by the KPK investigators about the bribery case centering on the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry’s project to built resettlement areas in Papua.
The four have denied allegations that they asked for kickbacks from a construction company to ensure it was chosen to participate in the Rp 73 billion (US$8.1 million) project. It is not the first time the committee has been implicated in corruption cases. Yulianis, a witness in a high-profile bribery case at the Youth and Sports Ministry, testified that in her capacity working at one of former lawmaker Muhammad Nazaruddin’s companies, she had sometimes funneled money to the committee.
Nazaruddin’s indictment read out last week also revealed that a member of the committee, lawmaker Angelina Sondakh at the House’s sports commission, also played a role in helping secure projects at the Youth and Sports Ministry.