Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –
The Papuan People’s Solidarity Team will return the scholarship money from the Education Fund Management Institution (LPDP) Ministry of Finance worth Rp. 773 million, which has been received by human rights activists (HAM) Veronica Koman.
Spokesperson for the Civil Society Network, Suarbudaya Rahadian, confirmed that the return will be carried out by solidarity representatives today, Wednesday (16/9) at the Ministry of Finance office, Central Jakarta.
He said, the amount of money returned was exactly the same as the bill from LPDP to Veronica, which was IDR 773,876,918.
“This is a message that there is no more debt from Ms. Veronica Koman to the Ministry of Finance,” he said when contacted. CNNIndonesia.com, Wednesday (16/9).
He said today’s return would be carried out symbolically, some representatives of the solidarity team would only provide a copy of the transfer receipt, not the cash as much as was charged.
“Later there will be a theatrical action of 4 people wearing Papuan traditional clothes, then handing over symbolically,” he said.
To note, Veronica previously admitted that she was asked by the LPDP to return the scholarship money worth Rp. 773 million she received while pursuing her master’s degree in Australia in 2016.
The request for the return of the scholarship money was then considered as a form of pressure from the government to stop talking and advocating for human rights issues in Papua. Veronica is currently a suspect in a provocation case at the Papua Student Dormitory, Surabaya.
However, the LPDP Management denied Veronica’s accusations. From the information and LPDP system, Veronica did not fulfill the contract and had to return to Indonesia after receiving the LPDP scholarship. Veronica did return to Indonesia in 2018, but after that she flew back to Australia and had not graduated from her study period.
Veronica then graduated as of July 2019, but only reported her graduation to the LPDP monitoring and evaluation system application on September 23, 2019.
For this reason, the LPDP issued the President Director’s Decree regarding the Sanction for Refunding LPDP Scholarship Fund of IDR 773.87 million to Veronica on October 24, 2019. Then, the First Collection Letter was issued on November 22, 2019.
From the sanction and collection letter, the LPDP stated that Veronica agreed with the submission of the scholarship refund method in 12 installments on February 15, 2020. The first installment was paid and reached the state treasury in the amount of IDR 64.5 million in April 2020.
(yoa/kid)
– .
