PIKIRAN RAKYAT – The recent revelation of certain Indonesian officials' luxurious lifestyles has tarnished the spirit of eradicating corruption in President Joko Widodo's administration. The Coordinating Minister of Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Mahfud MD and Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani agreed to restore public trust by expressing their commitment to combating corruption.
"It has been discussed because actually, the Minister of Finance and I are very close, we have the same spirit. Suppose we can't say it's exactly the same. In that case, it's almost the same," Mahfud said after a meeting with Deputy Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara and his staff at the Office of the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs in Central Jakarta on Friday.
"And we have the spirit to eradicate corruption. I believe that Mrs. Sri Mulyani with all her steps and reports in the cabinet meetings also supports her. And I always speak and give signs of a smile if there are tough discussions because we have the same spirit to eradicate corruption," he continued.
Mahfud emphasized that his investigation of the alleged money laundering case worth IDR 300 trillion in the Ministry of Finance (MoF) is his way of supporting Sri Mulyani.
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"What I'm doing is actually in response to Mrs. Sri Mulyani's expectations and my support for her," Mahfud said.
Mahfud also revealed the reason for questioning the movement of IDR 300 trillion (USD 20 billion) in MoF. According to Mahfud, his action was based on Presidential Instruction (Inpres) Number 2 of 2017 concerning the Optimization of the Use of Financial Transaction Reporting Center Analysis and Examination.
"Why are we questioning this? Because there is Inpres Number 2 of 2017, every information on alleged money laundering issued by PPATK, whether it's at the request of the concerned agency or on PPATK's own initiative because of reports from the public," he explained.
"When it's issued, there must be a report from the relevant agency, according to Inpres, what is the feedback report. Some have it, some don't, and so on," he added.