10 August 2019
Emirsyah Satar, former CEO of Garuda, was arrested by the national anti-corruption agency KPK, on suspected corruption involving the procurement of aircraft and plane engines for the airline.
The KPK said S$568,000 was transferred to Emirsyah to pay for a house in Jakarta, with another US$680,000 and 1.02 million euros ($1.58million) sent to an account of a Singapore-based company owned by Emirsyah. Another S$1.2 million was paid to him to pay off an apartment in Singapore.
Payments to Emirsyah was made by a middleman Soetikno Soedarjo who acted as a consultant to Garuda Airline. He often appeared at numerous important functions that Garuda held during Emirsyah’s tenure from 2005 to 2014 and he was a familiar face to Garuda employees.
Soetikno received commission from Garuda’s suppliers, including Rolls Royce, which he in turn shared with Emirsyah and Hadinoto Soedigno, Garuda’s former technical and fleet management director, KPK said.
Mr Laode of KPK said Hadinoto received US$ 2.3 million and 477,000 euro in bank transfers from Soetikno which went to an account in Singapore.
According to KPK the money came not only from Rolls-Royce but also from other suppliers and contractors. Other contractors included France’s Airbus, Avions de Transport Regional (ATR) and Canada’s Bombardier.
An unnamed source told Straits Times that mark-up on each plane amounted to $20 million, with 10 planes purchased during Emirsyah’s tenure in Garuda. The source also told that the kick-backs must have been distributed to very senior politicians and government officials, because a CEO or a director on the board of Garuda would not be in a position high enough to facilitate such a big deal.
KPK said it has confiscated a house in Jakarta while authorities in Singapore seized an apartment and blocked various bank accounts of Emirsyah in the city state. KPK suspects the involvement of several foreign manufacturers in the case and said it is open to cooperation with various authorities abroad.
In 2017, Rolls-Royce agreed to pay a $808 million fine to authorities in Britain, the United States and Brazil to settle bribery and corruption claims in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Russia, Nigeria, China and Malaysia. Of the countries mentioned here only Indonesia and India have taken action against the local bribe recipients. In India, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)has booked Rolls Royce and its Indian subsidiary for allegedly engaging services of an agent in India to get contacts from Navratna Public Sector Undertaking HAL, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Natural gas transmission company (GAIL), officials said on Tuesday. It is alleged that Rolls Royce engaged the services of an agent in spite of signing an integrity pact which bars such arrangements, CBI said.
Straits Times reported.
