JAKARTA
(Reuters) - The speaker of Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday denied allegations
that he helped cause big losses to the state in connection with the issuance
of
electronic national identity cards.
Setya
Novanto, chairman of Indonesia's second-biggest political party, Golkar, made
the denial to reporters after a meeting with leaders of the House of
Representatives.
The speaker
said he read media reports saying he was named by the independent Corruption
Eradication Commission (KPK) as a suspect in the alleged state loss of at least
2.3 trillion rupiah ($173 million) from the identity-card programme.
Late on
Monday, KPK Chairman Agus Rahardjo told reporters that a legislator with the initials
"SN" was suspected to have abused his authority to benefit himself or
others while the electronic identity card, known as e-KTP, was put in place in
2011 and 2012.
The KPK
always refers to suspects by their initials and never confirms their full names.
After Rahardjo's statement, many Indonesian media named Novanto as the suspect
the agency is investigating.
On Tuesday,
Novanto told reporters he would obey the legal process, but said he was
"shocked" by the allegations and denied any wrongdoing.
"Whatever
I'm accused of is not true," he said. "If they say that I received
funds, I've never done that. The sum of that money is incredibly huge. How was
it transferred, how was it received?"
The KPK has
been investigating allegations that sums ranging from $5,000 to $5.5 million -
money generated by marking up the costs of the e-KTP procurement - were divided
up in a room in parliament.
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In March,
two public servants on trial for corruption linked to the e-KTP case named at
least 37 people, including Novanto, who they said had benefited.
The KPK's
large-scale investigation, which also implicates members of President Joko
Widodo's own ruling party, PDI-P, shows the independence of the anti-graft
agency, political analysts say.
Despite repeated
efforts by politicians to undermine it, the KPK has remained independent and
highly popular with the Indonesian public.
It is also
seen as crucial for Widodo's drive to battle graft in the country that ranked
90th out of 176 in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions index
last year.
The decision
to designate Novanto, whose Golkar party is part of Widodo's coalition, as a
suspect is "a very positive sign", said Keith Loveard, a
Jakarta-based analyst at Concord Consulting.
"This
most certainly demonstrates how tough the KPK is," Loveard said, adding
that Widodo is unlikely to get in the way of the KPK's investigation in the
e-KTP case.
"While
all the parties are virtually implicated, including the PDI-P, public support
for the KPK remains extremely high. So for him to attempt to slow the process
or to create obstacles would be very damaging to his popularity," Loveard
added.
In late
2015, the parliament's ethics committee launched a probe into allegations by a
Freeport Indonesia executive that Novanto had tried to extort $1.8 billion
worth of shares from the local unit of the U.S. mining company.
Novanto
denied the allegations but stepped down temporarily. He was reappointed as
speaker a year later after he was cleared by the parliament's ethics panel.
Reporting by
Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Jakarta Newsroom; Additional reporting by Eveline
Danubrata, Hidayat Setiaji and Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Michael Perry and
Richard Borsuk
Reuters
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