Ardito Ramadhan, Jakarta – Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has criticised the Attorney General's Office (AGO) for displaying a pile of cash valued at 6.6 trillion rupiah, the result of the saving of state finances.
ICW Legal and Investigation Division head Wana Alamsyah said this is not substantial and was just image building.
"Efforts to show off the seized money represent an insubstantial step and are just image building", said Alamsyah in a written statement on Thursday December 25.
Alamsyah said that an ICW report in December 2024 recorded the value of state financial losses due to criminal acts of corruption of around 300 trillion rupiah. The return on state financial losses however was only 4.8 percent.
"This means that the performance of law enforcement in confiscating assets and recovering state financial losses was unsuccessful", he said.
Based on this, ICW is urging the government to focus on substantial matters, namely maximising the return of state financial losses.
Earlier on Wednesday afternoon December 24, the Forest Area Control Task Force (Satgas PKH) handed over 6.6 trillion rupiah, or to be precise 6,625,294,190,469.74 rupiah to the government, which were the proceeds from state finance savings.
Based on Kompas.com observations at the Attorney General's Office Bundar Building at 1 pm, the piles of 100,000 rupiah notes were arranged in the lobby of the building.
The money, wrapped in plastic, was arranged to form a corridor from the lobby to the AGO's Special Crimes Building (Pidsus). The pile of money was unloaded from a box car and moved using a trolley by Indonesian Military (TNI) members.
President Prabowo Subianto personally attended the handover of the trillions in cash and a number of Red and White Cabinet ministers also attended the event.
They were Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, Minister of Defence (Menhan) Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, Minister of Investment and Downstreaming/Head of Investment Coordinating Board (BPKM) and CEO of Danantara Rosan Perkasa Roeslani, and Minister of Forestry (Menhut) Raja Juli Antoni.
Then, Minister of State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi, Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP) head Muhammad Yusuf Ateh and Cabinet Secretary (Seskab) Teddy Indra Wijaya.
The cash handed over was part of the results of phase V of the forest area repossession covering a total area of 896,969,143 hectares.
It was recorded that within a period of 10 months, the Satgas PKH had regained control of 4,081,560.58 hectares of plantation land or more than 400 percent of the target, with the indicative value of the land that has been repossessed reaching more than 150 trillion rupiah.
The Task Force has also handed over 2,482,220,343 hectares of forest area resulting from repossessions to the relevant ministries.
This comprised an area of 1,708,033,583 hectares of oil palm and plantation land that was handed over to the management of PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, 688,427 hectares of conservation forest handed over to the relevant ministry for restoration and 81,793.00 hectares covering the Tesso Nilo National Park that was handed over to the relevant ministry for reforestation.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "ICW Sindir Kejagung Pamer Uang Rp 6,6 Triliun: Pencitraan Belaka".]
