Just two weeks before the House of Representatives is scheduled to wrap up the ongoing probe into the Rp 6.7 trillion ($710 million) Bank Century bailout, the special committee investigating the case has yet to reach a conclusion.
Nine factions in the House, having failed on Tuesday to reach a final conclusion on the trail of the bailout money, said that the hearing would be resumed today. What was apparent, however, was that the committee had so far been unable to prove allegations of corruption.
Lawmakers said the special committee had discovered numerous suspicious and fictitious transactions surrounding the bailout following fact-finding visits to five cities, making it impossible to reach a conclusion by Tuesday.
Despite failing to reach a final conclusion, seven of the factions said they would not change their preliminary conclusion, released last week, that the bailout was illegal and mired in corruption. Only President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB) deemed the bailout as lawful.
“The only facts we found concerned banking fraud. Other matters, like corruption, need more investigation by the Corruption Eradication Commission and the National Police,” said the committee’s deputy chairman, Mahfudz Siddiq, from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
He said the special committee was thus far unable to substantiate suspicions of corruption or trace a stream of money that flowed into the coffers of political parties. “There are indications, but we are constrained by time,” Mahfudz said.
