ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – Tin mining crimes in Indonesia, especially in the case of corruption in the tin trading system in the PT Timah Tbk Mining Business License (IUP) area from 2015 to 2022, caused huge state losses.
Apart from destroying the ecology, economically the state’s losses reached IDR 300 trillion. This refers to the audit results of the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP).
“Initially we estimated state losses at IDR 271 trillion, but it turns out that after the BPKP audit the value was quite fantastic, around IDR 300.003 trillion,” said Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia, Sanitiar Burhanuddin at the Attorney General’s office, Wednesday, May 29 2024.
The results of the BPKP audit were submitted by BPKP Chairman Muhammad Yusuf Ateh to Attorney General Sanitiar Burhanuddin.
Ateh said that his party carried out an investigation into state losses after being asked by the Attorney General’s Office. Based on this request, his party carried out audit procedures, investigations and also asked for information from experts.
“We have submitted the results of an audit of the calculation of state losses in the case of corruption in the tin commodity trade system, as stated by the Attorney General, the total loss was around IDR 300.003 trillion,” said Ateh.
New Suspect
The Attorney General’s Office has named a new suspect, namely the former Director General of Minerals and Coal, Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Bambang Gatot Ariyono (BGA) in this case.
The Director of Investigations at the Junior Attorney General for Special Crimes, Attorney General Kuntadi, said that he had collected two pieces of evidence that were sufficient to name Bambang as a suspect.
“One of the 4 previous suspects, Bambang has been upgraded to suspect status. He has been appointed in his capacity as Director General of Minerals and Coal, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources for the 2015-2020 period,” said Kuntadi.
He said that Bambang was named a suspect because he was suspected of committing unlawful acts related to the publication of the Work Plan and Budget (RKAB) in 2019.
“This was not carried out through any studies at all and we later found out that it was in order to facilitate transactions in illegally produced tin,” he added.
For information, this case began when a number of suspects in this case had a meeting with former high-ranking officials of PT Timah Tbk. (TINS) to carry out mining in 2018. The PT Timah official is suspected of accommodating illegal tin mining.
This meeting resulted in collaboration between PT Timah and a number of companies by renting equipment for the smelting process. Thus, to make illegal tin ore appear as if it were legal, a number of private parties collaborated with PT Timah to issue work orders (SPK). Apart from that, the suspected state administrator is also suspected of legalizing the activities of dummy companies mining tin by issuing work orders for the transportation of tin mineral processing waste products (SHP). Apart from that, the illegal mining results were then sold again to PT Timah Tbk.
According to the Attorney General’s records, PT Timah has spent IDR 1.72 trillion to buy tin ore. Then, for the metalwork process, PT Timah Tbk has spent IDR 975.5 million from 2019 to 2022. (ATN)
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