TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The termination of the investigation into businessman Sumadi Seng`s suspicious transactions with customs personnel is deeply regrettable. The police must expose how the trillions of rupiah have traveled over the past few years, with the import-export businessman at the center. The investigations termination hampers efforts to rid customs of corrupt personnel.
Sumadi`s involvement had actually been suspected since the investigation into bribery and money laundering implicating customs chief of exports subdivision, Heru Sulastyono, in 2013. Heru was said to be frequently using an automated teller machine (ATM) card under the name of one of Sumadis men. But after Heru had been tried and sentenced to six and a half years in prison, the businessman's part in the affair seemed to simply have evaporated into thin air. Only importer Yusran Arief's Rp11.4 billion in transactions was used as evidence to put Heru in prison.
Later, Sumadi Seng`s large part in these shady dealings at the port was gradually revealed. The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center discovered transactions totaling Rp1.5 trillion made from Sumadis bank accounts from 2003 to 2014. Some of the money went to numerous accounts owned by customs officers and police investigators.
Even if they did not have the time to scrutinize Sumadis transactions to strengthen the evidence against Heru, the police should have continued their investigation on Sumadi. The suspicious and massive transactions are, in fact, a weapon to completely expose the export-import network responsible for bribing customs officials. Obviously, Yusran was not the only one giving away money. Likewise, Heru was not the only one who got to enjoy bribes.
National Police investigators should have acted more professionally and made a serious effort into seeing whether Sumadi`s money had also gone to their own colleagues. The police investigators inaction failed to expose the rot in police circles. What followed was instead the exact opposite: a number of middle-ranking police officers were promoted, although they had clearly taken money from Sumadi Seng. One of these officers is currently a district police chief in West Java, while yet another holds an important position in the general crimes division.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) must step in and take over the Sumadi Seng investigation too long in suspension. The KPK has full authority to investigate corruption implicating law enforcement and state officials. Moreover, like in the police, dozens of Herus colleagues at customs have been stationed in strategic posts in the headquarters and the regions. Nine officials suspected by the directorate-general of taxation to have received money from Sumadi have continued to enjoy a comfortable career.
The deadlocked investigation into Sumadis transactions, not to mention a number of other customs cases, means the institution`s reform is heading nowhere fast. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani must see that efforts to reform customs as well as taxes have not touched upon the root of the problem. Still, too many delinquent employees and officials occupy key positions in the bureaucracy. Sri Mulyani must urge law enforcement to seriously investigate the bribery as well as re-evaluate how internal bureaucracy is monitored.
If such efforts prove unsuccessful, perhaps President Suharto's 1985 method needs to be replicated: remove the customs directorate general, dismiss all its personnel and transfer the management of customs to the private sector.
Read the full article in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine
