Anti-Graft Agency Pushes for Long-Delayed Asset Recovery Bill
Jakarta. The Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, or PPATK, are pushing for several anti-corruption bills to be passed into laws.
One of them is the asset recovery bill, which allows the state to recover proceeds from a crime. However, the House of Representatives has not even started deliberation on the bill and it was never included in its annual legislation program.
"The bill is complete, has been for quite some time, but the House still has not discussed it. The chairman of the PPATK [Ahmad Badaruddin] told us the president has already signed off on it," KPK chairman Laode M. Syarief said after meeting with PPATK leaders in Jakarta on Friday (10/02).
"[The asset recovery bill] is crucial. We need to have the authority to seize or take over assets from corruption or money laundering," Laode added.
"We don't have any law on asset recovery. If the bill is passed into law, it will greatly help the police, prosecutors, KPK and PPATK."
PPATK Deputy Chairman Dian Ediana Rae agreed an asset recovery law will help law enforcers fight corruption.
"We're right behind this," she said. "Any law that will help us fight corruption is good."
Earlier in 2011, the Indonesia Corruption Watch had urged the government to speed up the introduction of a law which allows the state to recover assets from crime.
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