PIKIRAN RAKYAT - Mahfud MD, the Minister of Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, has denied that there were any discrepancies between the data he presented and the data presented by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani in the Commission XI meeting the day before.
During the public hearing with the Indonesian House of Representative's Commission III on Wednesday, March 29, 2023, which lasted from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Mahfud MD faced a barrage of questions from Commission III members regarding the discrepancies between his presentation and that of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani.
In response, Mahfud asserted that the data he presented was based on the investigation by the National Coordination Committee for the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering (TPPU) and was the most comprehensive available.
"There is no different data. Only Sri Mulyani explained it this way. If the PPATK is a group, for example, Rafael has a group. When examined by Sri Mulyani, only one was taken. So this is a group; it's called money laundering," he stressed, emphasizing that the data was the same but the interpretation was different.
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"Like picking one apple, 'oh this is tax, wow, there are so many companies.' But it's the tax that is calculated, not the money laundering," Mahfud said.
Furthermore, he explained that there were also administrative obstacles that made it challenging to uncover money laundering cases, which required certain report letters to be physically delivered to the Finance Minister. Nevertheless, Mahfud mentioned that not all of these letters received follow-ups from Sri Mulyani's subordinates.
"Sri Mulyani's data is wrong, yes. The original letter was sent by hand. This cannot be submitted by mail because it is sensitive. So it was done by hand," he said.
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At the press conference following the public hearing, Chairman of Commission III Ahmad Sahroni confirmed Mahfud's statement and said that the data he held was authentic. "There were 300 letters given by Finance Minister, but not followed up. So the data is different from what Finance Minister has. So the synchronization will be combined to be known by the public," said Roni, who is commonly called by his nickname.