ICW Unveils Multiple Methods of Corruption in Village Funds
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8 November 2019 23:00 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) recorded at least 15 methods of corruption in the government's village fund program. ICW said that the methods were discovered from hundreds of corruption cases investigated by the legal apparatus.
"Out of the hundreds of existing cases, we have found 15 methods of corruption practices," said ICW Legal Division Coordinator, Tama S Langkun, at the KPK building, Jakarta, Friday, November 8.
Tama mentioned one of the methods was fictitious projects, which was carried out by proposing an operational budget for a non-existing project.
The other method was dubbed double budget, in which the perpetrator proposed a budget for a completed project. In addition, there were also people who were in debt using village funds but never returned it.
"These are the methods we can easily find," Tama said.
He explained that there was a surge in corruption cases related to village funds in the past few years. Throughout 2016-2017, 110 village heads were arrested for such crimes, whereas in 2018 alone, 102 suspects were arrested.
"The data were obtained from public news. So we don’t know [the exact data because] they are not on the news," he added.
Recently, issues of corruption in village funds seized the public spotlight following the findings of three phantom or fictitious villages, viz. Ulu Meraka Village, Uepai Village, and Morehe Village in Konawe Regency, Southeast Sulawesi Province. The three villages were listed as the beneficiaries of the village fund program.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Southeast Sulawesi Police are investigating the alleged corruption practices.
M ROSSENO AJI
