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Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has suspended a provincial governor embroiled in a 1.4- million-dollar corruption case, an official and newspaper reports said on October 11, according to a AFP report datelined Jakarta.
Djoko Munandar, the governor of Banten province just west of Jakarta in western Java, became the second provincial chief to be suspended as Yudhoyono steps up efforts to root out endemic corruption in the country.
"He was suspended because he has been declared a suspect," said presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng.
Munandar is to stand trial in a corruption case involving the misuse of 14 billion rupiah (1.4 million dollars) in the provincial budget that dates back to when he was speaker of Banten's parliament in 2003.
He allegedly forked out 3.5 billion from the budget to pay local legislators who drafted a draft budget and another 10.5 billion to illegally build houses for 75 legislators, according to the Jakarta Post.
Five other officials will also go on trial in the same case.
In April an anti-corruption court jailed Abdullah Puteh, the governor of tsunami-hit Aceh province, for 10 years for his role in marking up the price of a Russian helicopter bought by the province before the disaster.
The Supreme Court last month upheld the jail term.
Yudhoyono, who took office last year, has pledged to intensify the drive against corruption, which has bedevilled the economy and deterred foreign investment.
Scores of current and former officials or local councillors have been brought to court but Puteh is one of the most senior officials to be jailed.
Iraq hunts top officials over billion-dollar corruption: In another development, Iraq has issued arrest warrants for two dozen people, including former defence minister Hazem al- Shaalan, over the suspected embezzlement of more than one billion dollars earmarked for weapons purchases, the country's top anti- corruption official said Tuesday, AFP reported from Baghdad.
"We have issued arrest warrants for 23 top-ranking defence ministry officials including the former minister," judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the Iraqi commissioner on public integrity, told the news agency.
Finance Minister Ali Allawi claimed last month that one billion dollars had been plundered from defence ministry coffers during the US-backed government of former prime minister Iyad Allawi.
Investigators believe the money was siphoned abroad in cash and used to fund purchases of shoddy and outdated military equipment, dealings which the finance minister told a British newspaper had seriously curtailed efforts to crush the insurgency raging in Iraq.
"It is nearly 100 per cent of the ministry's procurement budget that has gone AWOL (absent without leave)," Ali Allawi was quoted as saying in the Independent newspaper.
Radhi said another three top former ministry officials had been arrested, but declined to give further information.
Shaalan himself, who Radhi said was now believed to be London, has rejected the accusations against him as "lies".
Radhi said the Iraqi authorities were working with international police to seek the arrest of many of the wanted suspects believed to be abroad.
"If they are outside Iraq it should be Interpol who brings them back," he said, adding that .
Radhi denied his anti-corruption campaign was politically motivated, saying investigations were also on-going into the current Shiite-dominated government which replaced Allawi's administration after January's landmark elections.
He said probes were also underway into activities of the labour, housing, transport and oil ministries. Finance minister Allawi has said that between 500-600 million dollars has allegedly disappeared from various ministries.
"There are so many cases we have in so many ministries," Radhi said. "We are not political; we are technocrats and our role is to chase the corruption and bring the guilty to justice."
Allawi, who headed an interim government which took office after the US occupation handed power over to the Iraqis, heads the Iraqi List which has 40 seats in the new parliament.
He has said he plans to form a broad-based secular coalition to fight the next elections due to take place in December after the national referendum on October 15 on the country's post-Saddam Hussein constitution.
Audit shows graft widespread in Chinese government: In yet another development, a national audit has found that graft remains widespread in the Chinese government, with ministries including finance, education and health all misusing funds last year, a report, according to AFP, said on October 11.
The details were revealed by the National Audit Office, which said 38 government bodies improperly used budget funds in the 2003-04 fiscal year.
According to the findings, reported by the China Daily, the corruption record has failed to improve despite a government campaign to tackle a scurge that experts say threatens social stability.
Embezzlement, inflating amounts in applications for budgets, setting up private accounts and illegal fee-collection top the list of problems, the report said.
As an example, it highlighted the National Centre for Health Inspection and Supervision, under the health ministry, which bought six cars for 1.91 million yuan (235,000 dollars), funds which should have been used for other, more urgent purposes.
Some departments overstated the need for funds while applying to the Ministry of Finance; and some secured double, or even triple, the amount they needed for various programs.
The report said that last year the Ministry of Finance approved 600 million yuan (74 million dollars) for a programme proposed by the Ministry of Commerce, but only 40.5 million yuan, or 6.75 per cent, was spent on it.
Fee collection, meanwhile, was marred by irregularities, especially in educational institutions and hospitals.
The report said that the amount of improperly or illegally- used funds hit 9.06 billion yuan (1.11 billion dollars).
While the audit office can investigate misuse or improper use of budgetary funds, it has no power to censure or penalize offenders.
Corruption is endemic in China and has grown during its economic reform period, threatening the legitimacy of the communist government, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said last month.
In a report, the OECD said corruption represented between 3.0 and 5.0 per cent of China's gross domestic product, or between 409 and 683 billion yuan (50-84 billion dollars) in 2004.
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