TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - It is not enough for the shophouses built by Kapuk Naga Indah company on Island D to be sealed off. They had begun to be sold, without ever holding building permits. Their exclusive right to continue building should be revoked.

Furthermore, Kapuk Naga's parent company Agung Sedayu is now being investigated for allegedly bribing Mohamad Sanusi, a Jakarta City Council (DPRD) member. The owner of the property company had objected to a 15-percent contribution in the proposed bylaw on the Land Use Plan for the North Jakarta Shoreline Strategic Area. He paid Sanusi to have it removed.

The regulation is intended to be the legitimate basis for the construction of buildings on the reclaimed islands, a project conceived in 1995. Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama believes the developers' obligation to set aside 40 percent of the land for green open spaces and 5 percent for public and special facilities is too lenient. He wants developers to build public facilities on the mainland by setting aside funds according to a formula: 15 percent of their taxable value multiplied by the area of the land sold. The developers objected, and asked the DPRD to reduce this to 5 percent or to remove it from the bylaw altogether. With a total contribution of Rp48.8 trillion, the 10-percent difference would be around Rp25.8 trillion.

This would have happened if the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had not arrested Sanusi. Indeed, in the final draft of the bylaw, the additional contribution had been erased.

The move by the KPK is being seen as neither a gain nor a loss. Yes, a businessman's greedy plan abetted by a corrupt politician had been foiled. But if the bylaw had been passed and the contribution article removed, the KPK would have been able to arrest not only the legislators and the businessmen involved but also complicit members of the executive.

The KPK had, after all, taped a conversation between a special staff of the governor, Sunny Tanuwidjaja and Agung Sedayu's boss Sugianto Kusuma, alias Aguan, over the issue. The emergence of Sugianto's name was a surprise because he is widely known as the mysterious 'Jakarta godfather', linked to the Nine Dragons, a group of businessmen believed to control the underworld since the New Order era.

For the Jakarta administration, this scandal can be used to impose a moratorium on reclamation activities. Producing artificial islands on Jakarta Bay for real estate purposes has been controversial since the idea was proposed by President Suharto in 1995. Apart from the business aspect, the landfills prompt serious questions about large-scale environmental damage. This magazine once reported Kapuk Naga's involvement in stealing sand from the Thousand Islands, a national park that supports Jakarta Bay's ecosystem. The environment ministry has issued a study showing that reclamation will impact adversely on the livelihoods of fishermen, change water currents and harm biodiversity and disrupt the flows of 13 rivers often blamed for flooding in Jakarta.

The KPK must show no mercy to developers who break the law. And those guilty of bribing including top-level businessmen must be severely punished. This should not only apply to individuals but also to the institutions involved. Bribery in the Jakarta Bay reclamation case must be declared a corporate crime. (*)

Read the full story in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine