More details emerge on ‘Cikeas head’

JAKARTA. The State Palace has confirmed that Sylvia Sholehah, a woman suspected of playing a crucial role in the graft-ridden Hambalang sports complex project, was indeed close to the First Family.

Presidential Secretariat head Nanang Djuana Priyadi said that Sylvia, also known as Ibu Pur, was a good friend of both President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and First Lady Ani Yudhoyono.

“Ibu Pur is just a close acquaintance of President SBY and First Lady Ani Yudhoyono,” Nanang said on the presidential website presidenri.go.id and Cabinet Secretariat website setkab.go.id.

Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha also confirmed that Sylvia was close to Yudhoyono and the First Lady.

“Sylvia’s husband [Purnomo D. Rahardjo] was in the class of 1973 at the Military Academy with the President,” Julian said. “Yes, the two sides remain in contact. However, I can assure you that neither the President nor the First Lady discussed nor did things that had anything to do with any [government] projects, including Hambalang.”

Meanwhile, former Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum claimed that he first met Sylvia at a party in mid-2010, further prompting speculation that the connection between Sylvia and the First Family extended to members of the party.

“Well, I have met [her], but I don’t know her well,” he said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Anas, whose relationship with Yudhoyono became strained after the President took over the party’s leadership from him in February, also said that Sylvia was a member of the President’s close circle.

Democratic Party executive chairman Syarief Hasan, who is also the small and medium enterprises minister, meanwhile, said he became acquainted with Sylvia only after he hired her husband as one of his advisers at the ministry in 2009.

Sylvia’s name was mentioned by Mindo Rosalina Manulang, the former marketing director of PT Anak Negeri, a company owned by former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin, who testified at a court hearing on the Hambalang case on Tuesday that many people, including Sylvia, a woman she identified “as the head of the Cikeas household”, wanted to get a slice of the lucrative project.

Widodo Wisnu Sayoko, believed to be a cousin of the President, also testified that he and Sylvia tried to help the Finance Ministry arrange documents necessary for the project.

While acknowledging that Sylvia was close to the First Family, Nanang denied the claim that she was the “Cikeas household head”. Cikeas refers to Yudhoyono’s family estate in Bogor, West Java.

“Since the President took office in 2004, only five people have held the position and Ibu Pur isn’t one of them,” Nanang said.

Nanang said there was no such thing as the head of the Cikeas household.

He said that Yudhoyono relied on the Presidential Secretariat head, which was called Presidential Household head before 2011, to handle his schedule.