JAKARTA: An ex-minister has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for misappropriating more than 14.1 billion rupiah (US$900,000) of public money for his personal use. On Thursday (Jul 11), former Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo was found guilty by the Jakarta Corruption Court of spending public funds on personal expenses, including private jet travel and jewellery for his wife.
Syahrul was also fined 300 million rupiah, which if not paid, will be replaced by an additional prison sentence of four months, as well as US$30,000 in restitutions, according to presiding judge Rianto Adam Pontoh, as quoted by local media. Syahrul is the sixth member of current president Joko Widodo’s Cabinet to be sentenced to prison in a corruption case. After the hearing, Syahrul told reporters that the bribery case was a consequence of his job as a cabinet minister.
“The 10-year prison sentence is not easy, but I’m proud that when I was still a minister, the Agriculture Ministry and the president received 71 awards,” he said, as quoted in the Jakarta Post. He also claimed that he had never used the money for personal use. Between January 2020 and October 2023, Syharul had directed former Secretary General of the Ministry of Agriculture Kasdi Subagyono and former Director of Agricultural Equipment and Machinery at the Ministry Muhammad Hatta, along with several subordinates, to collect the money, which he considered as his 20 per cent share of the budget from each secretariat, d.
