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Boediono rejects House summons
Margareth S. Aritonang and Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headlines | Thu, December 05 2013, 10:47 AM
Vice President Boediono has said he will not meet the House of Representatives summons to testify in the House's probe into the graft-ridden disbursement of Rp 6.76 trillion (US$578 million) in the bailout of ailing Bank Century in 2008.
Following a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, the House monitoring team on the Bank Century bailout case decided to summons Boediono on Dec. 18, in his capacity as former Bank Indonesia (BI) governor.
The monitoring team said the summons was to elicit more information about the disbursement of the bailout money, which analysts have said was unnecessary and plagued by irregularities.
Responding to the summons, Vice Presidential spokesman Yopie Hidayat said that Boediono would reject it as it could disrupt the work of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which is currently investigating the case.
"Pak Boediono is committed to helping the KPK solve the Century case. So, he doesn't want political intervention disrupting the ongoing legal process. The political aspect of the matter stopped when the House agreed to submit it to law enforcement agencies," Yopie said in a statement on Wednesday.
Yopie reminded the House about its own decision on the role of the monitoring team; as merely overseeing how the law enforcement agencies pursued the case.
"Summonsing parties other than law enforcement agencies is outside the authority of the Bank Century monitoring team," Yopie said.
The decision to summons Boediono was taken after eight political factions at the House agreed to the plan. The Democratic Party rejected the motion.
"The Democratic Party was the only faction which questioned whether or not it was ethical to summons Pak Boediono about intervention. We don't want to interfere in the legal process. We just want to seek clarification of the statement," said Deputy Speaker of the House Pramono Anung Wibowo, who chaired the meeting, referring to Boediono's recent statement defending the government's decision to save Bank Century, now Bank Mutiara.
Pramono said that the monitoring team would look for clarification particularly on the Vice President's assertion that the bailout was necessary to protect the country's banking system from a systemic collapse.
Shortly after being questioned by KPK investigators late last month, Boediono maintained that the only way to prevent a systemic collapse of the country's banking sector was through the disbursement of the short-term assistance [FPJP] to Bank Century.
Boediono, who was also deputy head of the now-defunct Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK) added that "What we did during the crisis was noble. [It was] noble to handle the crisis in our country and if in this noble action there were parties who abused [the course of action], then it actually hurt us all".
His statements, however, contradicted the opinions of other witnesses questioned by the KPK in the case, including former vice president Jusuf Kalla who said that the bailout was unnecessary because Bank Century had been robbed by its owners.
According to Kalla, who was interim president at the time of the decision, he was left in the dark about the situation concerning the bank as then finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who headed the KSSK, and Boediono told him that there was no looming economic crisis during a meeting prior to the bailout decision being made.
Kalla added that the bailout had ballooned to Rp 6.76 trillion from Rp 632 billion in only three days.
Outspoken lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo of the Golkar Party said that there was no reason for Boediono to defy the summons.
"We treat everybody equally. Pak Boediono must understand this. We can summons him by force if he fails to show up three times," he said.
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