Ahok testifies for city councilors in UPS case

JAKARTA. Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama was questioned on Thursday by police investigators in connection with alleged graft in the procurement of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units for schools in Central and West Jakarta.

 “I was questioned as a witness for two members of the City Council – Fahmi Zulfikar and M. Firmansyah,” said Ahok after being questioned for two and a half hours at Jakarta Police headquarters.

Fahmi is a Hanura Party councilor and member of the council’s Commission E overseeing welfare, while Firmansyah was a Democratic Party councilor during the 2009 to 2014 period.

This time, Ahok declined to speak to journalists about the specific questions from investigators, saying only that they were similar to the questions posed when he was summoned last year to shed light on the role of other suspects in the UPS procurement case.

“They were similar to the previous questions. How did the UPS procurement appear? How was the budget document (KUA-PPAS) debated, etc.,” the governor said.

He did, however, stress that he knew nothing about the inclusion of the UPS procurement in the revised city budget for 2014 and insisted that their inclusion did not amount to negligence on his part. “No, it is not negligence… I was cheated,” he said.

The governor added that his administration could prevent such projects from being included in the city budget today thanks to the use of an electronic budgeting system for any procurement using city funds.

The police have named five suspects in the UPS case. The three others are Alex Usman, the former infrastructure division head at the West Jakarta Education Office, Zaenal Soleman, the former head of the Central Jakarta Education Office, and Harry Low, CEO of PT Offistarindo Adhiprima, the UPS supplier.

The UPS procurement was included in the revised 2014 city budget at a price of Rp 6 billion (US$433,839) per unit for each school, with a total budget of Rp 300 billion. Ahok previously said the procurement had not been discussed when the budgetary team debated a budget document known as the General Budget Policies and Provisional Budget Ceiling and Priorities (KUA-PPAS).