http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/article/10185.html
February 18, 2009 Nivell Rayda & Dessy Sagita Health Ministry Staffers Paint Picture Of Long-Entrenched Graft, Deception Health Ministry staff said on Tuesday that they were not surprised to hear the Corruption Eradication Commission had started an investigation into allegations of graft at the ministry. "Everybody knows that prices for medical equipment are marked up," said a ministry staff member speaking on condition of anonymity. "The other day I saw a report from the ministry. I was surprised to find they reported a medical chair costing Rp 145 million [$12,200]. It's only Rp 25 million on the market." Markups like that are common, the source said. Corruption was first alleged by the country's leading antigraft body, Indonesia Corruption Watch, which last year told the commission that since 1998 a total of Rp 128 billion of the ministry's budget had been embezzled. The group based its report on discrepancies found by the Center for Public Health Policy Studies, an independent NGO, in several of the ministry's projects. The center found a difference of Rp 14.8 billion between the budget reported to the president and the actual money spent on a project to handle malnutrition in several provinces in 2005. It also found irregularities in financial reports for handling an avian influenza outbreak in 2006 and the provision of portable X-ray machines for hospitals in remote and underdeveloped areas in 2007. Rp 145m alleged billed price of a Rp 25m chair The case that the commission agreed to investigate centers on X-ray machines estimated to have cost the state Rp 4.8 billion. The commission has disclosed that one official referred to only as "M" is a suspect. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told reporters on Tuesday that as far as she was concerned there could have not been any irregularities in the ministry's procurement projects. "We have a good system that leaves little room for corruption and we disclose all of our documents for auditing," the minister said. However, she also said there were hundreds of ministry tenders that she did not oversee. "I couldn't have checked each and every one. I have an inspector general to do that," she said in reference to Faiq Bahfen, a ministry official. "The KPK should ask him, not me." Another ministry staff member, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said many losses to the state were not reflected in obvious discrepancies in the audits. High-tech equipment such as CAT scans, for example, were bought but not all hospitals had people to operate them, the source said. "Ministry officials are given kickbacks from the importers, so we are buying a lot of things that we don't need," the staffer said. Another source said smaller-scale health sector corruption was also prevalent among doctors at state-run hospitals. "Doctors sometimes keep free medicine that was intended for underprivileged people, both for themselves and to sell to pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies," the source said, adding that patients also give kickbacks to doctors, especially when it comes to the state health insurance, or Askes, that covers treatment only in state-run hospitals. "In order for their treatment to be covered by Askes, doctors manipulate their reports to reflect covered services," the source said. "You can ask the doctors to report your plastic surgery to the insurance company as cancer removal." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
