Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Ezra Sihite & Agus Triyono | February 28, 2012

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wants all suspicious transactions involving his ministers to be investigated, Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam said on Monday.

“The most important thing is that the president wants corruption-eradication efforts to continue to run, no matter who is involved,” Dipo told reporters after a hearing with House of Representatives Commission II, which oversees home affairs.

A recent Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) report showed 2,000 “suspiciously large” bank transactions involving accounts linked to ministers and legislators, mostly from the controversial House Budget Committee.

Dipo said the presidential office had not yet received the PPATK data but that a legal process was already under way.

Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Abraham Samad told lawmakers in another hearing on Monday that all 2,000 transactions were being reviewed.

Specifically, PPATK chairman Muhammad Yusuf said there were at least 23 suspiciously large transactions between high-profile graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin, the former treasurer of the president’s Democratic Party, and active ministers.

“Whether any of those are connected to crimes, we are still verifying,” he told House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, last week.

One transaction, he said, involved Rp 100 billion ($11 million).

Asked by Golkar Party lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo exactly how many ministers Yusuf was referring to, the PPATK chairman vaguely responded “not many, just one or two [ministers].” Read More

In 2003, under the Bali Concord II, ASEAN agreed to create the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. The AEC will establish ASEAN as a single market and production base that, in theory, will make the regional grouping more dynamic and competitive, leading to greater economic development.

The planned ASEAN single market and production base will comprise five principle elements: the free flow of goods, services, investment, capital and skilled labor. In theory, a single market has many benefits. Proponents believe that with the free flow of all factors of production between member countries, the allocation of all the factors of production will be more efficient, and thus lead to increased productivity.

Given that ASEAN member nations vary widely in their economic and sociopolitical development, however, applying a single market naturally has raised doubts among some. For Indonesia in particular, which is ASEAN’s largest country and boasts its biggest economy, will the AEC’s single market work for us?

The AEC spirit is deeply rooted in economic liberalization. However, as many have argued, economic liberalization has not always translated into equitable and balanced development and an improvement in people’s welfare. For Indonesia, there are at least three problems arising from the creation of a single market. The first concerns industrial relations policies, which also relate to manpower policies. Both of them are weak. Read More

Vento Saudale | February 20, 2012

Bogor. As rain continues to fall across Bogor and the upstream area of the Ciliwung River, water at the Katulampa Dam reached dangerous levels on Sunday, spelling disaster for Jakarta if it continued to rise.

Hendri Antoro, head of the data and information bureau of the Bogor Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), warned that Greater Jakarta was moving into high-intensity rainy season.

He said the peak of the rainy season, initially forecast for mid-January to mid-February, had been delayed and was estimated to end sometime in early March.

“The rain in the Greater Jakarta area has begun to rise to 42 millimeters and even up to 50 millimeters. This is before entering the peak of the rainy season,” Hendri said.

He attributed the increased rains to the rising temperature of the surface of the Java Sea, a phenomenon he said was expected to continue until early March

In Bogor and its surrounding areas, the extreme weather has already seen above-average wind speed, high levels of rain and also lightning, said Djabariah, a forecaster at the Bogor BMKG office.

Bogor has experienced rains for the past week. Strong winds also damaged houses in three villages in the Cibinong subdistrict of Bogor on Saturday, displacing 52 families.

Heavy rains also caused the banks of the Cijeruk River in Bogor to burst, inundating 57 houses with up to 50 centimeters of water, said Yous Sudrajat, who heads the Bogor Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD).

At the Katulampa floodgate in Bogor, the alert status is now Level 4, up one from normal, as the water has reached dangerous levels of 70 centimeters while flowing at 62 cubic meters per second, said Andi Sudirman, the operator of the gate.

The normal level of water at the gate is below 50 centimeters, but recent rains in Bogor have raised the level by 20 centimeters.

“Our staff is on alert, monitoring the water’s height,” Andi said. He said the water could still rise to above 90 centimeters and flow at 113 cubic meters per second if the rains continued to fall in the upstream area of the Ciliwung River.

“If rains continue over the Puncak area for the next two hours, we will enter the next alert level,” Andi said, referring to the upstream areas of the river. Read More