Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has detained Mesuji District Head Khamami for allegedly receiving a bribe worth Rp1.58 billion in connection with the district`s infrastructure projects funded by the 2018 budget.

"Khamami is detained at the military police`s detention house of the Jaya Regional Military Command for 20 days," the anti-graft body`s spokesman, Febri Diansyah, informed journalists here on Friday.

The Mesuji District head is under detention since early Friday after being grilled by the KPK investigators for hours, while four other suspects had also been sent to different detention centers, he revealed.

Khamami`s brother, Taufik Hidayat, is detained at the Jakarta Metropolitan Police`s detention house, while Secretary of the district`s Public Works and People`s Housing Office Wawan Suhendra is jailed at the East Jakarta Police precinct.

Sibron Azis, the owner of PT Jasa Promix Nusantara and PT Secillia Putri, is detained at KPK`s detention house, while the other suspect named Kardinal is detained at the Central Jakarta Metropolitan Police precinct, he remarked.

Mesuji District Head Khamami had allegedly received a bribe worth Rp1.58 billion as fees, or 12 percent of the total value of the infrastructure projects that Azis had obtained through Suhendra.

The fees were the payments of four projects handled by two companies of Azis. Khamami allegedly received the bribes several times, specifically Rp200 million on May 28, 2018; Rp100 million on August 6, 2018; and Rp1.28 billion on January 23, 2019, he noted.

Diansyah had remarked earlier that the KPK investigators, on Thursday, had arrested eight people, including Khamami, on graft charges in the areas of Bandarlampung City as well as the districts of Mesuji and Central Lampung during a raid.

During the raid, the anti-graft body`s investigators seized a cardboard box containing banknotes of Rp100 thousand denomination, Diansyah noted, adding that the amount of money in the box was estimated to reach around Rp1 billion.

Corruption crimes involving regional leaders remain a serious problem in Indonesia.

In April 2018, Chief of the Task Force of Prevention Coordination and Supervision of KPK Asep Rahmat Suwandha revealed that 93 regional leaders, including 18 governors and 75 district heads and city mayors, had been named suspects in corruption.

Several of them had also been tried and convicted, Suwandha remarked, adding that 12 of the 93 regional leaders, implicated in corruption last year, were from West Java Province.

Hence, West Java had the largest number of heads of district administration named as corruption suspects by the KPK among 34 provinces of the country, he added.

Reporting by Desca Lidya Natalia, Rahmad Nasution

Reporter: Antara
Editor: Sri Haryati
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