TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The revelation that Rolls-Royce had bribed Garuda Indonesia's top executive did not come as a surprise. The rumors of suspicious frauds at Garuda first surfaced in 2006, a year after CEO Emirsyah Satar currently indicted for the Rolls-Royce bribery case took over the reins.
At that time, Anwar Nasution, Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) chairman, warned of suspected violations in the airline's ticket sales section, which could potentially incur tens of billions of rupiah in losses to the company. However, no one acted on his warnings.
Two years later, Garuda's labor union came to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and surrendered a packet of evidence on various violations. Union leader Tomy Tampatty came to report irregularities in the company's debt restructuring fund management. They returned a year later and filed a complaint against alleged corruption of the airline's promotion and advertising funds and a breach of the informational technology infrastructure management. The state's potential losses from these cases were estimated to be in excess of half a trillion rupiah. Tomy Tampatty claimed he was questioned twice by KPK investigators but was never contacted again.
The peak of these allegations was the scandal surrounding the purchase of Rolls-Royce jet engines for Garuda's new Airbus 330-300 aircrafts. Early January this year, Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East confessed to a UK court that since 2005, he had bribed the Garuda boss to the tune of more than US$2 million, or about Rp26.7 billion.
At the same time that Emirsyah Satar's corruption was exposed, the complicity of businessman Soetikno Soedarjo founder of Mugi Rekso Abadi came to light. He was previously unheard of, as his name was not listed in the boards of directors and commissioners of the Singapore-based consulting firm Connaught International, the company that channeled the bribe money from Rolls-Royce to Emirsyah in the form of a condominium, a luxury car, and cash payments.
The British anti-corruption authority, Serious Fraud Office (SDO), had passed on all the evidence, including transaction records and other supporting documents, to the KPK last year. This evidence and additional documents from Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) enabled the KPK to proceed smoothly with its own investigation.
All this point to the fact that if the matter had been taken seriously at the outset, these violations could have been prevented. Clearly, the corruption investigation mechanism and standard procedures in state companies still need to be fine-tuned. Law enforcement authorities, on the other hand, should not hesitate to follow through all leads despite the inconvenience of implicating institutions or individuals.
The KPK should not be complacent with the arrest of Emirsyah, after the Financial Transaction Reporting and Analysis Agency (PPATK) found evidence of money flowing from Emirsyah's account to those belonging to other people. There is also evidence of money trails from Rolls-Royce to top executives at the state electricity company PLN. It is crucial that the KPK investigate this case thoroughly to send out the message that corruptors will not be allowed to roam free in this country. (*)
Read the full story in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine
