KPK looks into Luhut's alleged role in tax case

JAKARTA. Responding to a claim made during a court hearing on Monday that Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan had played a role in a corruption case, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said on Tuesday that it had taken note of the allegation.

Luhut was mentioned in the trial of Ramapanicker Rajamohanan Nair, the country director of Eka Prima Indonesia, a local subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based Lulu Group.

Ramapanicker allegedly bribed Handang Soekarno, a tax officer at the Directorate General of Taxation, in order to waive his company’s Rp 78 billion tax bill.

“When new names or new events are mentioned in the trial, we will dig deeper into the facts and judge the relevance for the ongoing investigation into Handang,” said KPK spokesperson Febri Diansyah on Tuesday.

Speaking as a witness in Monday’s hearing, Jakarta Special Tax Office head Muhammad Haniv said Luhut had requested that Japanese companies be removed from the corporate taxpayers list (PKP).

Haniv testified that before the meeting took place he had received many complaints from companies that had been removed from the PKP by the Kalibata Tax Office, where they were registered.

The KPK arrested Ramapanicker and Handang on Nov. 21 during a raid on the businessman’s residence, seizing US$148,500 as evidence. The two have been named suspects in the case, in which Arif Budi Sulistyo, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s brother-in-law, has been implicated for allegedly acting as a middleman in the case.