Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has named six people suspects, including Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker I Nyoman Dhamantra, in a case of alleged bribery related to garlic import permits.
They were named suspects for alleged bribery after the anti graft body questioned 13 people who had been arrested in a series of raids on Wednesday and Thursday. “The KPK has increase the case status to an investigation with six people as suspects,” KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo said as quoted by kompas.com.
Three of the six suspects, including Chandry Suanda, the owner of agriculture company PT Cahaya Sakti Agro, as well as businessmen Doddy Wahyudi and Zulfikar, were alleged to have handed over bribes to the three other suspects. The alleged receiver included Nyoman, who is a member of House of Representatives Commission VI overseeing trade, his close aide Mirawati Basri and Elviyanto.
During the raids, KPK seized SG$50,000 (US$36,180) from Mirawati and documents concerning the alleged transfer of Rp 2.1 billion (US$148,245) from Doddy to an account in Indocev Money Changer. Nyoman had allegedly received Rp 2 billion — suspected to be a bribe — transferred by Doddy, while the latter kept Rp 100 million in his account for operational expenses for requesting the import permit.
According to the KPK, Nyoman, through Mirawati, had initially asked for a total of Rp 3.6 billion in fees from the businesspeople in exchange for issuing a permit for an import quota of 20,000 tons of garlic to several companies, including Chandry’s. Nyoman also allegedly asked for commitment fees of Rp 1,700 to Rp 1,800 for each kilogram of garlic imported in to Indonesia.
