Academia
The PLN scandal was not an isolated event, but rather the tip of an iceberg of systematic kickbacks and case-brokering spanning the country's largest financial scandals.
Assistant Attorney General for Special Crimes (Jampidsus) Febrie Adriansyah walks out of the Attorney General's Office (AGO) special crimes division building in south Jakarta on July 10 ahead of a press briefing. (Antara/Asprilla Dwi Adha)
From mothers forced to discard rotten breast milk from useless refrigerators to families staring at broken appliances, hospitals scrambling to keep patients alive mid-surgery and small business owners watching their daily income vanish in the dark, the Indonesian public is bearing the brunt of state-owned electricity company PLN’s coal procurement scandal. This massive case of state mismanagement and corporate graft serves as the ultimate indictment of a broken system. Yet, while millions of ordinary people suffer, the elites responsible quietly secure their fortunes. This structural impunity was laid bare when President Prabowo Subianto permitted the extraordinary crimes of former junior attorney general for special crimes Febrie Adriansyah to be handed over to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), his former home institution.
