Ministry Hopes Corruption Case Will Not Affect Waskita’s Infrastructure Projects

Jakarta –

The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) also spoke about the infrastructure project being carried out by PT Waskita Karya (Persero) at IKN. He hopes that the corruption case involving Waskita’s president director will not interfere with the projects being carried out by Waskita, one of which is the Nusantara National Capital (IKN) project in East Kalimantan.

Expert Staff of the Minister of PUPR for Technology, Industry and Environment as well as Spokesperson for the Ministry of PUPR Endra S Atmawidjaja said that his party would coordinate with the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) regarding this matter.

“I think the Minister will directly coordinate with the Minister of SOEs, to ensure better governance. Then a new main director (Waskita) is selected, with the hope that all Waskita projects from the APBN will not be disturbed, including those in IKN,” he said, when met at the Ministry Office PUPR, South Jakarta, Tuesday (2/5/2023).

He hopes that Waskita will soon have a new managing director to be able to run even better governance.

“That’s our hope. But how about the appointment? There’s a GMS, that’s not the domain of Public Works. I think BUMN will definitely think about that,” he said.

As for Waskita himself, he has pocketed a project contract at IKN worth IDR 5.92 trillion. The six project tenders won by Waskita are the IKN Toll Road Segment SP Tempadung-Balang Island Bridge of IDR 2.2 trillion, the construction of the Sepaku Ring Road Segment 4 of IDR 181 billion.

The others are the Presidential Secretariat Building of IDR 1.3 trillion, the construction of buildings and office areas for coordinating ministries 3 & 4 of IDR 1.53 trillion, and the construction of IPAL 1, 2 and 3 KIPP of IDR 638 billion.

Endra said that his party would continue to promote good corporate governance (GCG) at the corporate level. In this case, according to him, GCG must not only be encouraged from the assignment side but also corporate governance.

As additional information, previously the Attorney General’s Office had named the Main Director of Waskita, Destiawan Soewardjono as a suspect in a corruption case for irregularities or misuse of PT Waskita Beton Precast funds in 2016-2020.

Destiawan is said to have ordered the disbursement of funds using fake documents to pay off the company’s debts. The company’s debt exists because of the disbursement of payments for fictitious projects at the request of Destiawan. According to the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP), it is estimated that the state has lost around IDR 2.5 trillion more as a result of this corruption.

(eds/eds)