Pertamina Foundation mired in graft scandal

The National Police are expected to summon Pertamina Foundation executive director Nina Nurlina Pramono and question her on her alleged role in a graft case involving one of the foundation’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects.

National Police director for special economic crimes, Brig. Gen. Victor E. Simanjuntak, said that Nina would face questioning regarding the program to plant 100 million trees under her direction between 2012 to 2014.

“We are investigating corruption in a project that ran from 2012 to 2014, so of course we will question the executive director [from that time],” Victor told reporters during a police raid at the Pertamina Foundation office in South Jakarta.

According to investigators handling the case, the Pertamina Foundation, which is tasked with managing the CSR funds of state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina, used state funds of up to Rp 46 billion (US$3.27 million), Rp 137 billion and Rp 70 billion in 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively, for the tree-planting project.

Victor said police investigators estimated that losses from the graft in the CSR project amounted to Rp 126 billion.

Police investigators raided four offices at the Pertamina Foundation headquarters on Tuesday, including that of Nina.

Most of the documents confiscated in the raid were related to payments made by volunteers involved in the CSR project.

Investigators handling the case also suggested that the CSR project had caused state losses and were in violation of the 1999 Corruption Law and the Criminal Code (KUHP).

“We firmly believe that there has been corruption [involved] in the Pertamina Foundation’s CSR programs. There are people who question whether misuse of CSR funds can be considered state losses but bear in mind that the CSR funds are included in the central government’s wealth report. This means that any losses in those funds are considered state losses,” he said.

Victor declined to reveal whether investigators had named suspects in the case, but confirmed that individuals within and outside the foundation could have been involved in the case.

Although the police have not confirmed whether the raid is connected to last week’s decision by the police to announce that one of the 19 candidates for the post of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) commissioner was under investigation by them, the final interview conducted by the KPK selection committee seemed to suggest that Nina was indeed the candidate in question.

Last Tuesday, Nina was asked by the committee members about reports that only 30 percent of the project was realized while most of the funds were misused.

Nina replied that the public auditor who reported those figures misunderstood the data having only taken a 0.05 percent sample of the total project, which resulted in the 30 percent figure.

Meanwhile, legal expert Chairul Huda, from Muhammadiyah University in Jakarta, said there was no precedent in which the misuse of CSR funds could give rise to state losses.

“However, that does not mean it is impossible [for such a case to occur],” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Chairul said the point of a police raid was to collect evidence in order to determine whether or not the alleged misuse of funds was a violation of the KUHP or any other laws in relation to graft.

-Jakarta Post