The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 08/27/2010 9:58 PM | National

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/08/27/kpk-have-more-authority-fight-against-money-laundering.html

The new anti-money laundering bill will give the anti-graft commission more authority to scrutinize cash flow in connection with corruption cases, a legislative team says.

Under the current law, only the police and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) are authorized to probe such cases.

Azis Syamsuddin, a member of the legislative team in charge of formulating the bill, said Friday the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) would come to be vested with such authority if the new anti-money laundering bill were to be passed this year.

Activists and experts have criticized the AGO and the police force for a number of fiascos in executing money-laundering regulations in the past seven years.

“Under the new bill, the KPK can investigate allegations pertaining to criminal [money-laundering] offences, so long as the commission has preliminary evidence of corruption in money-laundering cases,” said Azis, who is also a legislator from the Golkar Party.

Besides conferring more power on the KPK, the bill would empower the role of the Financial Transaction Report and Analysis Center (PPATK) in investigating suspicious financial transactions. (tsy)