MetroTV, MANY people are wondering why the Attorney General's Office (AGO) suddenly named and detained Thomas Trikasih Lembong as a suspect? The question continues to linger because until yesterday, or two days after detaining Tom Lembong, the AGO has not been able to reveal any flow of funds to the 2015-2016 Minister of Trade. Thus, the corruption case that Tom Lembong is suspected of is still based on the AGO's assessment that the sugar import policy when Tom was Minister of Trade was inappropriate because Indonesia had a sugar surplus. The AGO also assessed that Tom Lembong caused a state loss of Rp400 billion due to assigning PT Perusahaan Perdagangan Indonesia (PPI) to work with the private sector to process imported raw crystal sugar into white crystal sugar. In total, there were nine private companies that worked with PT PPI. Charles Sitorus, who served as Director of PT PPI at that time, was also named a suspect. Based on the principles of corruption, profit is not always in the form of money or flow of funds. Then, based on Law No. 31/1999 concerning the Eradication of Corruption, it is stated that the occurrence of financial or economic losses to the state is included in the elements of corruption. Even so, the AGO still has a large debt in the Tom Lembong case. The AGO must still be able to prove that Tom or other parties enjoyed benefits, both in terms of cash flow or not. We also demand that this be disclosed immediately considering that the AGO said that the investigation of the case has been carried out since 2023. Without that, the arrest of Tom Lembong will continue to raise questions, even suspicions. One of the suspicions of many people is that there are other motives outside the law enforcement motive for the arrest of Tom Lembong. In addition, it is not surprising that the conclusion emerged that there was a tendency for selective severance in the arrest of Tom Lembong. Because, if the case that ensnared Tom was the sugar import policy, similar things were also done by other trade ministers, both before and after the Tom Lembong era, even until now sugar imports are still occurring. In fact, the amount of sugar imports carried out by the last trade minister in the Jokowi administration, namely Zulkifli Hasan, was three times greater than the imports during the Tom Lembong era. If Tom imported 5 million tons of sugar during his one year in office, Zulkifli imported 18 million tons of sugar during 2022 until the end of President Jokowi's administration. In fact, at that time, in early 2022, Indonesia also recorded a surplus of 1.6 million tons of sugar. Of course, the alleged dirty practices are not from the size of the import figures. However, with those rough figures alone, it can be analyzed that the allegations against Tom must also be investigated in other trade minister policies because of the same policies. Moreover, the sugar production cycle, including the milling period, in the country has not changed drastically, aka it is still the same. In 2019, the sugar import policy was even defended by the coordinating minister for the economy at that time, Darmin Nasution. Even though sugar production was high and stocks were still abundant, at that time Darmin said that sugar imports were still carried out because the government did not yet know the certainty of the allocation and quality of the existing sugar. Therefore, investigating other trade minister policies will prevent criminalization of food policies. Investigations into all of them also show that law enforcement is fair, not selective, and far from other motives outside of legal motives. The chaos behind this sugar import must be revealed clearly so that all loopholes can be closed in the future. Also, investigations without discrimination will allow the state to improve policies related to imports, including licensing issues that have not been utilized effectively. Once again, we demand that the AGO immediately show initial evidence of alleged corruption in the Tom Lembong sugar import case. The AGO should not continue to use the mere argument that the policy is inappropriate because of high production. The AGO must realize that food policies not only affect all actors in the industrial production chain, including farmers, but also food security and price stability. A thorough and comprehensive investigation of the case must be carried out before labeling it as alleged corruption. #BedahEditorialMI #EditorialMediaIndonesia #UtangKejagungdiKasusTomLembong #Metrotv ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Also follow our social media to get the latest information updates! Website: https://www.metrotvnews.com/ Facebook: / metrotv Instagram: / metrotv Twitter: / metro_tv TikTok: / metro_tv Metro Xtend: https://xtend.metrotvnews.com/