Former S’pore narcotics chief faces graft charges

Leonard Lim and Tham Yuen-C, Asia News Network (The Straits Times), Singapore | Wed, 06/13/2012 10:36 AM

Former Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) chief Ng Boon Gay on Tuesday became the second senior public servant in a week to be charged with using his position to obtain sexual favors.

The 46-year-old is said to have had several trysts with Cecilia Sue Siew Nang, a sales manager seeking government contracts for two information technology vendors here on separate occasions.

His court appearance came days after former Singapore Civil Defense Force commissioner Peter Lim Sin Pang, 52, was charged with similar offences involving different women in a separate sex-for-contracts case.

The Straits Times understands that Ng's case centers on tender procurement for IT-related products. He is accused of obtaining sexual gratification to “further the business interest” of Hitachi Data Systems and Oracle Corporation Singapore.

Court documents indicated that Sue had allegedly performed oral sex on Ng four times between June and December last year.

During the first two alleged trysts, the 36-year-old Sue was a sales manager at Hitachi. She left around November to join Oracle as a senior sales manager.

If convicted, Ng could be jailed for up to five years or fined up to S$100,000 (US$77,887), or both, on each charge.

On Tuesday, his lawyers from WongPartnership said he intends to plead not guilty.

Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng and Melanie Ho added in a media statement: “Personal indiscretions aside, Boon Gay firmly believes he is not a corrupt officer.”

In court, Tan asked for the case to be adjourned as he wanted the prosecution to clarify how Ng had allegedly helped the companies' business interests, and what those interests were. After receiving this information, the lawyers will consider whether to make further representations.

A spokesman for Oracle Corporation Singapore declined to comment, but it is believed Sue is still employed there.

A Hitachi Data Systems spokesman said the company was not aware that it was the subject of any investigations.

He added that if Sue had behaved inappropriately during her time with the company, none of its staff was aware of it or condoned it.

Ng had his bail set at S$10,000. He will next appear in court on June 26.

He was arrested on Dec. 19 last year amid allegations of “serious personal misconduct”, and later suspended on Jan. 25.

However, his family has maintained a strong show of support. On Tuesday, his wife, Yap Yen Yen, accompanied him to the Subordinate Courts along with his brother and sister. They arrived in a taxi at 8:50 a.m. (7:50 a.m. Jakarta time) with his lawyers from WongPartnership.

Yap, 44, stayed close to her husband, holding his arm and hand at times.

She later issued a statement through the lawyers, saying: “I have never doubted his professional integrity and will continue to stand by him.”

The Ngs' visible support was in stark contrast to the scene last week when Lim arrived at the court alone before being charged with 10 counts of corruption.

Lim is accused of obtaining sexual favors in exchange for helping three women further their business dealings. The alleged trysts are said to have taken place in public carparks, Lim's Costa Rhu condominium and once in a Paris hotel.

No locations were given for Ng's alleged encounters with Sue. The Ministry of Home Affairs said on Tuesday that she is no longer servicing the bureau's accounts.

Revealing the Nunun enigma, unraveling major graft cases

Donny Syofyan, Padang | Tue, 12/13/2011 9:28 PM

Nunun Nurbaeti was arrested on Friday afternoon in Bangkok, Thailand. She arrived in Indonesia and has been undergoing health checks prior to questioning about her connection to the Bank Indonesia vote-buying scandal in the House.

Nunun was accused of distributing bribes to lawmakers to back Miranda S. Goeltom’s bid to be a senior deputy governor position at the central bank.

While several lawmakers have been locked up in the case, Nunun, the key suspect, fled to Singapore just before the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) issued a travel ban against her. She later reportedly traveled to Cambodia before settling down in Bangkok, Thailand.

Nunun presents us with an enigma. She frequently claimed that she went abroad for medical treatment. Her husband, Adang Daradjatun, kept her location secret. But examining the enigma may have value.

First, the war on corruption shows growing progress after Nunun’s capture. Nunun was not the first graft suspect arrested by Interpol agents abroad. The former treasurer of the Democratic Party, Muhammad Nazaruddin, was arrested by Interpol agents in Colombia and returned to Indonesia.

It is a coincidence Nunun that was nabbed not long after the commemoration of World Anticorruption Day on Dec. 9?

It looks like the arrest of Nunun in Thailand is a gift for the nation’s anticorruption campaign.

The number of corruption scandals that the KPK is tackling, mainly the Nazaruddin and Nunun cases, should be seen as a blessing in disguise.

At first the situation seems bad, not only owing to the KPK’s heavy workload, but also due to public expectations about the nation’s anti-graft body.

It turns out that no one is untouchable and infamous long-time graft suspects — Nazaruddin, Nunun and even Miranda Goeltom, who was linked to Nunun — eventually received lengthy prison terms.

Expectations for the nation’s graft fight are increasing after the arrest of Nunun. It is now the turn of the KPK to uncover the vicious circle of corruption suspects, particularly those involving politicians and business tycoons.

The arrest of Nunun will not be a great success story if the KPK loses track of high-profile corruption suspects and their mighty political financiers. The KPK did the right thing by detaining the politicians. However, it should not just focus on those who allegedly accepted the bribes, but also on those who paid them.

Second, the arrest of Nunun is supposed to consolidate the country’s political elite against corruption as a common enemy. There must be consistent social engineering to treat corrupt officials, politicians, or businesspeople as persona non grata. Lawmakers could apply the approach by expelling corrupt suspects within their own political parties and circles.

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) could kick things off by urging PKS lawmaker Adang Daradjatun, Nunun’s husband, to step down from the House. This should be seen as one way of penalizing crooked legislators.

At the same time, the National Police needs to stay impartial to probe deep into the alleged involvement of Adang, the former deputy chief of the National Police, with his wife’s case.

While he claimed that his wife was too ill to walk, people have been shocked to look at photographs showing her shopping at malls in Singapore and Thailand. The police along with the KPK must be more serious in upholding justice, especially when the culprits are powerful people.

The public is entitled to maximum transparency in the Nunun’s case. People seem to be no longer tolerant of the presumption of innocence for Nunun.

Anything coming out from her mouth to defend herself should be deemed unreliable and ignored. Transparency could be defined as placing society as critical partners to prevent the issue from diverting any further.

Third, the KPK is very likely to face a political counterattack. Some lawmakers could revive their bid to invoke the right of lawmakers to express an opinion on the Bank Century bailout scandal, which could ultimately lead to impeachment proceedings against Vice President Boediono, who was the central bank governor at the time of the controversial Rp 6.7 trillion bailout.

Other legislators could strike back through various policies relating to the KPK, such as limiting the allocation of funds regardless of extensive public support for the new KPK leaders.

Hence, the new KPK leadership is expected not to be torn about breaking open a major criminal case that could involve their friends or former superiors.

Despite large powers protecting Nunun with robust financial means, her arrest suggests that the integrated mechanism and strategy to hunt for and deal with graft suspects is setting the scene for victory for Indonesia’s graft busters in a long war on corruption.

The writer, a graduate of the University of Canberra, Australia, is a lecturer at Andalas University in Padang, West Sumatra.

Mahfud urges PPATK to publish list of civil servant graft suspects

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 12/06/2011 3:24 PM

Constitutional Court chief Mahfud MD has requested that the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) disclose the names of all civil servants who have suspiciously large bank accounts.

“The PPATK cannot be vague about this. The list of names should be reported,” he said Tuesday as quoted by tempo.com.

He said that it was not impossible for civil servants to become rich. However, he added, it was strange for third- and fourth-class civil servants to possess wealth worth hundreds of billions of Rupiah.

Mahfud blamed the troublesome bureaucratic system, which he said paved the way for corruption among civil servants and enabled them to accumulate ridiculous amounts of wealth.

He said that it was essential that the PPATK also disclose the sources of the money to identify whether they were legal or illegal.

“This is important for corruption eradication,” he said.

The PPATK previously announced that 50 percent of young civil servants are indicated to have committed corruption. It cited the civil servants’ lifestyle, possession of luxurious goods and fat bank accounts. Corruption methods used included transferring state budget funds to personal bank accounts, creating fictitious projects, gratuity and bribery.

Trial of 3 transmigration graft suspects set to begin

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 11/16/2011 10:48 AM

Three suspects in a graft case implicating Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar are scheduled to attend their first hearing at Central Jakarta District Court on Wednesday.

The three suspects include the secretary to the ministry's directorate general for transmigration area development, I Nyoman Suisnaya, evaluation and report unit chief Dadong Irbarelawan and PT Alam Jaya Papua employee Dharnawati.

Nyoman was arrested prior to the delivery of an alleged bribe worth Rp 1.5 billion (US$166,500) from Dharnawati.

The money is said to have been paid to clinch a Rp 73 billion deal to build infrastructure projects in resettlement areas in Papua that were proposed by the ministry.

No moratorium on graft convict remissions, only tightened procedures: Gov�t

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 11/05/2011 2:05 PM

Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana says the government has decided against a moratorium on the granting of remission for graft convicts, saying it would opt to tighten the procedures instead.

Denny said that banning remission, albeit only temporarily, was apparently against the law, citing opinion from a number of legal experts.

“This [tightening the remission granting procedures, instead of the moratorium] is not my personal policy, but that of the Law and Human Rights Ministry. We’ve decided on this,” Denny said during a discussion on the issue in Jakarta on Saturday.

Denny, who was just recently appointed as the deputy minister, had said previously that the government would apply a moratorium on the granting of remission for graft convicts while revising related regulations.

He said, however, that the plan had sparked more protest than support.

University of Indonesia criminologist Ganjar L. Bondan said he agreed with the government’s decision to tighten procedures for remission granting, saying graft convicts had frequently obtained remission very easily.

“There is even an implication that remission granting and conditional releases have now been commercialized,” Ganjar told the same discussion.

He also expressed agreement that a moratorium was not the right move, saying such mechanism could only apply on budgetary affairs.

Denny inconsistent in graft convict moratorium: Lawmaker

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 11/04/2011 12:17 PM

A moratorium on sentence remissions for graft convicts, which was issued recently by Law and Human Rights Deputy Minister Denny Indrayana, is inconsistent, House of Representatives Law Commission member Bambang Soesatyo says.

He cited an earlier statement by Denny that the ministry would not issue a a moratorium, but would only tighten remission requirements for those convicted for extraordinary crimes such as graft, narcotics and terrorism.

“But a circular sent to the Directorate General of Correctional Facilities at the [Law and Human Rights] Ministry clearly mentions the word moratorium,” Bambang said Friday as quoted by kompas.com.

He also said Denny had back-flipped on an earlier statement that he would not approve parole for any graft convicts, and cited the case of former House member Agus Condro. Denny thought Agus had set a good example by becoming justice collaborator in the 2004 central bank senior deputy governor election bribery case, and approved parole for him, Bambang said.

“In this particular case Denny was again inconsistent because he also released another graft convict, Daniel Tandjung, from prison on the same day as Agus,” he said

KPK plans to follow up on Sitorus graft allegations

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 11/04/2011 11:10 AM

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) plans follow up on recent allegations by the Judicial Corruption Taskforce that graft took place in a land dispute between the Forestry Ministry and DL Sitorus, a prominent businessman operating oil palm plantations in Sumatra.

“We will conduct a follow-up investigation of the report,” Johan said Friday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The taskforce received a report from Hendrik R.E Assa, whose ex-wife was a notary who was hired by Sitorus to channel a bribe worth more than Rp 140 billion to influential figures including Supreme Court justices presiding over the case.

Former forestry minister MS Kaban also said Sitorus had attempted to bribe him through his relatives.

Kaban said, however, he had rejected the offer and continued the legal process.

Govt. assigns special team to hunt two more graft fugitives

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 08/10/2011 7:56 PM

Legal and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar said a special team has been assigned to hunt down two other graft fugitives, Nunun Nurbaeti and Anggoro Wijojo.
Nunun is wanted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for her alleged role in the Bank Indonesia traveler’s checks bribery scandal, while Anggoro is wanted for a graft case relating to the procurement of an integrated radio communications system for the Forestry Ministry.

“It’s difficult to hunt down Nunun because she is silent, unlike “Nazar”, who consistently appeared [in the media],” said Patrialis, who was referring to former Democratic Party treasurer Nazaruddin.

Nazaruddin, a graft suspect in the SEA Games athletes’ village development project in Palembang, South Sumatra, was finally arrested in Cartagena, Colombia on Sunday, after months of moving from one country to another.
Nunun, wife of Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician and former National Police deputy chief Adang Daradjatun, and whose whereabouts remain unknown, reportedly fled to Singapore on February 23, 2010. Meanwhile, Anggoro left Indonesia on July 28, 2008. Both are listed as Interpol fugitives.