Former PLN?s president director faces life sentence
Tuesday, August 16 2011 - 03:04 AM WIB
Widiono who has been in detention since March, this year began his trial at the Corruption Court in Jakarta on Monday.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said that Widiono directly appointed PT Netway Utama as the contractor of the Rp 137 billion project without a bidding process. As the result, the state suffered financial losses of Rp 46.19 billion in the graft case.
The CIS-RISI project was initiated by the ITB Polytechnic in the 1990s, but it was then subcontracted to PT Netway Utama. Suspicions about collusion arose when it became known that the head of the ITB Polytechnic at the time, Gani Abdul Gani, was also the president director of Netway.
Widiono accused of receiving Rp 2 billion from the project, and other accomplices including PLN?s other former president director Fahmi Muhtar and PLN?s general manager for Tangerang Margo Santoso received Rp 1 billion, respectively. Meanwhile, the president director of Netway Gani Abdul Gani received Rp 42.1 billion.
During the court hearing on Monday, state prosecutor Mahibuddin said that Widiono had made an agreement with Gani since early 2000s that Netway would be named as the contractor for the information system project.
During the time, Widiono was still PLN?s director for marketing and distribution while the president director was Fahmi Muhtar. Widiono was accused of asking Fahmi and Margo to directly appoint Netway as the contractor for the project.
PLN?s board of commissioners had asked Widiono to reassess the project but he continued with the appointment of Netway.
Widiono?s lawyer Maqdir Ismail rejected all the indictment saying that there were a lot of questions in the indictments unveiled by the Corruption Court such as related to the state losses.
Maqdir questioned why the state losses were revealed a year after Widiono was named suspect. Maqdir also questioned the status of PLN?s other former president director Fahmi Muhtar and PLN?s general manager for Tangerang Margo Santoso.
Fahmi and Margo were already named defendants despite the fact that the two had never been under thorough investigation as suspects, said Maqdir.
KPK detained Widiono Widiono based on Article 2 point 1 and Article 3 of Corruption Eradication Law in conjunction with Article 55 point 1 of the Penal Code. Widiono was named suspect in February 24, 2010, on alleged corruption cases of PLN East Java. (*)