Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/ANN) - A key witness in the graft trial of suspended ruling Democratic Party lawmaker Angelina Sondakh revealed yesterday that more lawmakers allegedly received money as kickbacks that were wired to numerous bank accounts.
In her testimony before the Corruption Court with Sondakh as defendant yesterday, Yulianis mentioned the names I Wayan Koster, a lawmaker from opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, and Azis Syamsuddin and Zulkarnaen Djabar from government led-coalition member Golkar Party as having been involved in "schemes" to benefit the company owned by former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazarudin.
Yulianis also said that she also wired money in 14 transactions to all those politicians.
"I also disbursed money for Azis Syamsuddin for [helping] a project at the Attorney General's Office, and Zulkarnain Djabar, Said Abdullah and Abdul Kadir Karding for a project at the Religious Affairs Ministry," she said, referring to three other members of House Commission VII overseeing religious affairs.
These individuals, according to Yulianis, often attended internal meetings [with the company officials] related to projects the company was eyeing.
Yulianis could not recall the name of the lawmaker from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) whom she said was involved in a project with the Health Ministry.
Yulianis, a key witness in Sondakh's graft trial, is a former deputy financial director at the holding company, PT Permai Group, which is owned by Nazaruddin.
She also testified that Nazaruddin had many brokers in House's commissions. Lawmaker and House's budget committee deputy leader Olly Dondokambey was one of them, Yulianis said.
Nazaruddin is believed to have run dozens of companies under the group proxy to bid for government projects that were then subcontracted to larger companies in exchange for money.
Sondakh herself stands trial for allegedly having received kickbacks from Nazaruddin's company for the construction of the SEA Games athletes' village in South Sumatra, and a project with the Education and Culture Ministry.
Sondakh is standing trial at the Jakarta Corruption Court for allegedly accepting a total of 34.9 billion rupiah (US$3.6 million) in kickbacks from Permai Group.
According to her dossier, Sondakh, who was also a member of House's budget committee, had received kickbacks for securing government-funded projects, the SEA Games athletes' village construction project at the Youth and Sports Ministry and laboratory equipment procurement projects for several universities at the Education and Culture Ministry.
Contacted separately, Dondokambey denied that he had a role in the schemes.
"It's all lies. I have never heard anything about the company or Yulianis," Dondokambey told reporters yesterday.
Dondokambey claimed that the House's budget committee discussed only general policies and laws, and never went into details regarding procurement projects, as was accused by Yulianis.
"How could I start any discussion on the projects when we never talked about any of them in the committee?" he said.
