The appointment of the Minister of Social Affairs Juliari P. Batubara as a suspect in the Covid-19 social assistance (bansos) corruption case makes viral on the public.
The reason is, the public is still suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic. Social assistance for the basic food packages, which should reduce the suffering, was corrupted by Social Minister Juliari P. Batubara and his man.
The Minister of Social Affairs Juliari P. Batubara received up to Rp17 billion from bribes for the food packages for Covid-19 social assistance.
To get much money, Social Minister Juliari collected a fee for every basic food distributed to the community.
This fee must be paid by the vendor of procurement goods and services (PBJ) if they want to be part of the Covid-19 social assistance program.
According to a statement by the Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Firli Bahuri, Social Minister Juliari only collected a fee of Rp.10 thousand.
The value is determined based on an agreement with other suspects, namely Matheus Joko Santoso and Adi Wahyono. “The fee for each assist has been agreed upon by MJS (Matheus Joko Santoso) and AW (Adi Wahyono) in the amount of Rp. 10.000 per food package of Rp. 300.000 per social assistance package,” he said.
MJS and AW are commitment-making officials (PPK) in the Covid-19 social assistance program. Both of them were appointed directly by Social Minister Juliari to handle the national economic recovery efforts.
After determining the fee, the two of them made contracts with several PBJ vendors, namely Ardian IM (AIM), Harry Sidabuke (HS), and PT RPI, owned by MJS.
The appointment of PT RPI is to have been known by AW and the Minister of Social Affairs Juliari. The implementation of the Covid-19 pandemic assistance package is divide into two different periods.
In the first period, the three of them allegedly received a fee of Rp. 12 billion. Social Minister Juliari allegedly received Rp. 8.2 billion of them.
In the next period, the money collected from October-December 2020 reached IDR 8.8 billion. The money is managed by Eko and Shelvy, who are the confidants of Social Minister Juliari.
Furthermore, the bribes were allegedly used for the personal needs of Social Minister Juliari.
Minister of Social Affairs, Juliari P. Batubara, become the second Minister of Social Affairs in President Joko Widodo (Jokowi)’s ministry government.
