Jakarta Globe, February 13, 2009
The earthquake and devastating tsunami that struck Aceh Province in 2004 has been followed by a flood of corruption involving the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency, or BRR, in collusion with parasitic contractors, a corruption watchdog alleged on Friday.
At least Rp 100 billion ($8.5 million) provided by the government to rebuild the province has been consumed by corruption, resulting in poor quality reconstructions, said Askhalani, the coordinator of the Aceh branch of the People’s Anti-Corruption Movement, or Gerak.
“Based on the results of our monitoring, the suspected corruption mostly took place in the housing sector. One of the cases involved Rp 20.5 billion in graft by three companies working on the BRR’s housing assistance scheme,” Askhalani said.
He said that at the end of 2006, the agency gave orders to three Jakarta-based companies to build 799 houses for tsunami victims in Singkil and Aceh Jaya districts, worth Rp 60.55 billion.
“But soon after withdrawing Rp 20.5 billion, these three companies abandoned work and their bidding deposit cheques bounced,” Askhalani said.
“The BRR has reported this case to the Metro Jaya Police Department, but so far, there has been no explanation regarding the investigation. The question is why BRR officials who are supposed to be professionals failed to check on the credentials of these companies and disbursed the money so freely.” Aceh’s prosecutors’ office has probed two BRR’s officials — Bambang Sudianto, deputy for housing, and Ramli Ibrahim, deputy for control, but the results of their questioning have not been made public. ‘The question is why BRR officials failed to check on the credentials of the companies’
Askhalani, Gerak Aceh
Askhalani said there were several other suspected corruption cases in housing construction that were believed to have been caused by collusion between contractors and BRR officials. The pattern was that contractors withdrew the money and then abandoned work, or lowered the quality and specifications of the housings, prompting tsunami victims to refuse to occupy them, he said.
“The result of our monitoring from 2005 up to 2008, showed that there were 80 troublesome companies building houses for the BRR. They were mostly in Simeulue and Aceh Jaya districts. This was caused by BRR’s poor control ... many of its contractors caused problems,” Askhalani said, adding that many people had called on the agency to improve its supervision of contractors.
He cited a Rp 59.6 billion procurement project for 3,015 units of stainless steel frames for housing roofs in 2006, that later became “unusable due to incompatibility with the specifications in the contract." “Now the steel frames have become junk. If there was no conspiracy between the contractors and BRR’s officials, these situations would never have occurred,” Askhalani said.
Other corruption cases were also suspected in the various sectors of the BRR, monitoring by Gerak activists and the audit results of the Development and Finance Control Board, or BPKP, showed. He said that the BPKP’s audit results showed that corruption was suspected in mangrove and beach forests restoration projects, believed to have caused Rp 2.22 billion in state losses, and in the procurement project for high school laboratory equipment, which caused Rp 5.392 billion in losses. The construction of the Lamno-Calang road project also suffered a Rp 3.5 billion loss to corruption. Planning and designing health-care facilities caused a further Rp 3.298 billion in losses, he said. Investigations by Gerak Aceh found irregularities in land purchases for Banda Aceh’s cargo terminal that could inflict Rp 8 billion in losses to the government. “Our investigation found a land price mark-up. It should have cost from Rp 45,000 up to Rp 300,000 a meter, but the BRR paid Rp 700,000 a meter,” Askhalani said.
From the many suspected corruption cases, he said, only a few were investigated by prosecutors. Among those cases still being investigated by the Aceh High Court, were a teacher training program that caused some Rp 2.5 billion in state losses, a salt water dam construction which cost
Rp 7.1 billion and other projects worth hundreds of billion rupiah.
Mukminan, a member of the Banda Aceh council of representatives, said that many BRR projects in Banda Aceh seemed wasteful and were not fit for use due to shoddy construction work, especially the abandoned houses built by BRR for tsunami survivors. In addition, he said, construction of water pipelines and urban drainage systems had been built at a substandard level.
The earthquake and devastating tsunami that struck Aceh Province in 2004 has been followed by a flood of corruption involving the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency, or BRR, in collusion with parasitic contractors, a corruption watchdog alleged on Friday.
At least Rp 100 billion ($8.5 million) provided by the government to rebuild the province has been consumed by corruption, resulting in poor quality reconstructions, said Askhalani, the coordinator of the Aceh branch of the People’s Anti-Corruption Movement, or Gerak.
“Based on the results of our monitoring, the suspected corruption mostly took place in the housing sector. One of the cases involved Rp 20.5 billion in graft by three companies working on the BRR’s housing assistance scheme,” Askhalani said.
He said that at the end of 2006, the agency gave orders to three Jakarta-based companies to build 799 houses for tsunami victims in Singkil and Aceh Jaya districts, worth Rp 60.55 billion.
“But soon after withdrawing Rp 20.5 billion, these three companies abandoned work and their bidding deposit cheques bounced,” Askhalani said.
“The BRR has reported this case to the Metro Jaya Police Department, but so far, there has been no explanation regarding the investigation. The question is why BRR officials who are supposed to be professionals failed to check on the credentials of these companies and disbursed the money so freely.” Aceh’s prosecutors’ office has probed two BRR’s officials — Bambang Sudianto, deputy for housing, and Ramli Ibrahim, deputy for control, but the results of their questioning have not been made public. ‘The question is why BRR officials failed to check on the credentials of the companies’
Askhalani, Gerak Aceh
Askhalani said there were several other suspected corruption cases in housing construction that were believed to have been caused by collusion between contractors and BRR officials. The pattern was that contractors withdrew the money and then abandoned work, or lowered the quality and specifications of the housings, prompting tsunami victims to refuse to occupy them, he said.
“The result of our monitoring from 2005 up to 2008, showed that there were 80 troublesome companies building houses for the BRR. They were mostly in Simeulue and Aceh Jaya districts. This was caused by BRR’s poor control ... many of its contractors caused problems,” Askhalani said, adding that many people had called on the agency to improve its supervision of contractors.
He cited a Rp 59.6 billion procurement project for 3,015 units of stainless steel frames for housing roofs in 2006, that later became “unusable due to incompatibility with the specifications in the contract." “Now the steel frames have become junk. If there was no conspiracy between the contractors and BRR’s officials, these situations would never have occurred,” Askhalani said.
Other corruption cases were also suspected in the various sectors of the BRR, monitoring by Gerak activists and the audit results of the Development and Finance Control Board, or BPKP, showed. He said that the BPKP’s audit results showed that corruption was suspected in mangrove and beach forests restoration projects, believed to have caused Rp 2.22 billion in state losses, and in the procurement project for high school laboratory equipment, which caused Rp 5.392 billion in losses. The construction of the Lamno-Calang road project also suffered a Rp 3.5 billion loss to corruption. Planning and designing health-care facilities caused a further Rp 3.298 billion in losses, he said. Investigations by Gerak Aceh found irregularities in land purchases for Banda Aceh’s cargo terminal that could inflict Rp 8 billion in losses to the government. “Our investigation found a land price mark-up. It should have cost from Rp 45,000 up to Rp 300,000 a meter, but the BRR paid Rp 700,000 a meter,” Askhalani said.
From the many suspected corruption cases, he said, only a few were investigated by prosecutors. Among those cases still being investigated by the Aceh High Court, were a teacher training program that caused some Rp 2.5 billion in state losses, a salt water dam construction which cost
Rp 7.1 billion and other projects worth hundreds of billion rupiah.
Mukminan, a member of the Banda Aceh council of representatives, said that many BRR projects in Banda Aceh seemed wasteful and were not fit for use due to shoddy construction work, especially the abandoned houses built by BRR for tsunami survivors. In addition, he said, construction of water pipelines and urban drainage systems had been built at a substandard level.
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