Chief Detective Flip-Flops on Wealth Report, Now Says Will Comply

Jakarta Globe, Jun 02, 2015

Budi Waseso, center, the National Police’s chief of detectives, says he will, after all,
submit a mandatory wealth report to the KPK. (Antara Photo/Akbar Nugroho Gumay)

Jakarta. The Indonesian police’s chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso, claims his previously quoted refusal to submit a wealth report to the country’s antigraft commission was taken out of context by the media.

Budi told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday that he had every intention of filing the report with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), but wanted a third party to compile it for reasons of transparency.

“I want to be honest and open. So if possible, I prefer not to be the one to compile the report,” he said as quoted by Tempo.

“Once the report is completed, I will definitely submit it. I never said I didn’t want to,” he added.

Budi was quoted by Kompas last Friday as saying that he would not report his wealth and instead challenged investigators from the KPK to “fill in the details.”

“Let the KPK team do the counting because self-reporting is a subjective mechanism that may differ from what the KPK will find at a later date,” he said at the time.

Activists from prominent anti-corruption organizations lambasted the three-star general for the statement, given that filing a wealth report is mandatory for all senior public officials, including in the police force.

Budi, though, claimed on Tuesday that he had been misquoted as part of a “smear campaign” by the media.

“My statement was flipped over in the media. I know which media it is and who the reporter is. There’s a specific message behind it. But it’s alright, I shouldn’t get upset by it,” he told Tempo.

Despite his claim, Budi has long made clear his hostility toward the KPK.

It was his office that instigated – in retaliation against the KPK’s naming of another police general, Budi Gunawan, a corruption suspect – a series of criminal investigations against KPK officials based on trumped-up charges, some of them dating back a decade.

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