KPK Resummons House Speaker Setya Novanto Over e-KTP Graft Case
Jakarta. The national antigraft agency has resummoned House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto for questioning in the e-KTP corruption case, after he failed to turn up on Wednesday (04/01).
KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah said Setya, who is also the Golkar Party chairman, is currently in the United States.
"One of the witnesses scheduled for questioning was House Speaker Setya Novanto, but he asked for the questioning to be rescheduled," Febri told reporters at the KPK office in South Jakarta.
Febri said the KPK wants to investigate Setya's meetings with several parties when the e-KTP project was discussed at the House.
Setya's name had been mentioned by graft convict and former treasurer of the Democrat Party Nazaruddin, who said the e-KTP project had been controlled by Setya and former Democrat Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum.
The e-KTP is a biometric identification card that was going to be issued to all Indonesians aged 17 and older, but the project was mothballed in October 2015 following a series of problems, including a late start, technical glitches and officials demanding payments from residents to provide the ostensibly free service.
Various cases of corruption in the e-KTP project had resulted in Rp 2.3 trillion ($172 million) in state losses.
The e-KTP case emerged after the House of Representatives' Commission II, which oversees home affairs and elections, approved the Home Affairs Ministry's budget proposal for procurement of the electronic ID card, or e-KTP, program which cost the state Rp 6.7 trillion.
The House, at the end of November, reappointed Setya as speaker, reinstating him despite a major scandal last year when he was accused of trying to extort billion dollars worth of shares from the local arm of US mining giant Freeport McMoran.
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