Rudi admits to receiving money from a ?friend?
Wednesday, August 14 2013 - 03:40 PM WIB
?I have not committed corruption, but it seems that I?m (the case) categorized as what is called as gratuity. There was a friend who came (to me) bringing money. Therefore, let the legal process proves it,? Rudi said as quoted by news portal detik.com on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) after he was declared as a suspect in an alleged bribery case.
KPK alleged Rudi of receiving bribes worth more than US$700,000 from a top official of a Singapore-based oil trading company Kernel Oil. Reports said that the name of the official was Simon Gunawan Tanjaya. The two were arrested by KPK investigators in the early hours of Wednesday and are now being held at the detention facility of the anti-graft watchdog along with another suspect by the name of Ardi.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Wednesday issued a decree on the suspension of Rudi, and the appointment of SKK Migas Vice Chairman Johanes Widjonarko as acting chairman of the upstream oil and gas authoriy.
SKK Migas, responsible for regulating and supervising Indonesia's oil and gas production sector, has been in existence less than nine months, since the Constitutional Court controversially dissolved its predecessor, BP Migas. Yudhoyono appointed Rudi as chairman in January of this year.
Rudi was Vice Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources at the time he was appointed to SKK Migas, but previously had been employed in a senior position at BP Migas. At SKK Migas, Rudi had focused on seeking ways to reverse Indonesia?s declining oil production trend.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Jero Wacik said on Tuesday that the country will reach 1 million bpd of oil lifting in September 2014, up from 831,118 bpd by June of this year. During its peak in the 1990s, Indonesia?s oil production reached 1.5 million bpd.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak