TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian National Police (Polri) plans to establish a Special Detachment (Densus) force to combat corruption. For that, the police need a budget of up to Rp 2.64 trillion.
Police Chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said the Densus' authority will be similar to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which is a one-roof agency that prevents, investigates, and prosecutes corruption practices.
Tito is asking the House of Representatives' (DPR) Law Commission to help convince the Attorney General lend their prosecutors to join the Anti-Corruption Densus. If that's not possible, the AGO can at least provide a special team to work with the Densus in handling corruption cases, thus making investigative work between the police and the prosecutor easier.
According to plan, the Anti-Corruption Densus will consist of 3,560 people working across 34 provinces. For that, the police need a budget of up to Rp2.64 trillion, which would be allocated for capex (Rp1.5 trillion), goods expenditure (Rp359 billion) and human resources budget (Rp786 billion).
The discourse was first mentioned during a work meeting between the DPR's Law Commission and the Chief of Police on May 23. The Police Headquarters then conducted a preliminary study of the formation of the anti-graft Densus on July 11.
According to Tito, the existence of Anti-Corruption Densus will not overlap with the work of KPK, as each institution will handle different types of cases. For example, he said, KPK can focus on big cases, while the Anti-Corruption Densus can handle small cases that are not of national-scale.
KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah said he has no problem with the establishment of the Police's Anti-Corruption Densus. "The more people hunting corruptors, the better," he said.
AHMAD FAIZ