A Crime Suspect sworn in as Mayor

Last Friday, Jefferson Rumajar, Mayor of Tomohon, was sworn in to serve his second term in office, and Jimmy Eman as Deputy Mayor.

The ceremony took place at the Ministry of Home Affairs in Jakarta, because since September Rumajar has been detained by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as Suspect in a Corruption case that is now being tried at a Court in Jakarta.
  
After the ceremony, Rumajar, member of the Golkar Party,  returned to jail to induct 28 officials of the town of Tomohon, North Sulawesi.

Rumajar told reporters that although he will be in jail until the Court determine his legal status, however there will not be any problem because Deputy Mayor Jimmy Eman who will serve as Acting Mayor.

Meanwhile, Governor of North Sulawesi Sarundayang said that Rumajar will be suspended from his position as Mayor and Jimmy Eman shall become Acting Mayor. He also said that the induction of 28 officials by Rumajar was not legitimate.

The induction of a crime suspect is possible based on the Chief of Region Law 20044 which adopted the concept of Presumption of Innocent i.e a person is assumed innocent until there is a final court verdict which  determine otherwise.
In this case, Rumajar's position as Mayor will be determined after there is a final Court Verdict. If he is found guilty, his position shall be canceled, otherwise he would be be an effective Mayor.

The above shows that the sworn in of a Crime Suspect to serve as a Mayor has created uncertainty on who will lead the town, therefore should be avoided. For which purpose, I hope that Crime Suspects should not be allowed to participate as candidate in elections.

For details on the above, please read the following articles ::
-  Graft Suspect Made Mayor in North Sulawesi (The Jakarta Globe)
-  Graft-suspect incumbent sworn in as Tomohon Mayor (The Jakarta Post)
-  Walikota Tomohon Dinonaktifkan (Metrotv)

 Photo: Courtesy of Media Palu

Blackberry in Indonesia

I started using Blackberry mobile phone around six months ago, and since then all my online activities became  smooth and enjoyable for me.

Blackberry enabled me to have direct access to all my e-mails, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Blackberry Messenger 24-hours a day, and my monthly mobile phone bill dropped at least 40%.

For that reason, I was so surprised when I heard the Minister of Communication and Information Tifatul Sembiring a.k.a Tifie warned that he would shut down Blackberry services in Indonesia if its management i.e Research in Motion (RIM) refuse to block Porn Sites from Blackberry internet network in Indonesia by 17 January 2011..

And from the recent communications on Twitter, I found that many other Indonesian Tweeps felt the same way too about Tifie's above warning.

Frankly speaking, even if RIM finally agreed to block Porn sites from Blackberry network in Indonesia, I doubt that there will not be Porn sites anymore in Indonesia.

Rising Price of Chili Pepper

Chili Pepper is the basic ingredient for making the Sambal i.e a specific hot sauce consumed by most people in Indonesia.

Many people, including me and people I know, felt that eating would not be complete without Sambal.

For that reason, people are very shocked when the price of Chili Pepper jumped very high from Rp 20.000 several month ago to Rp 100.000 per Kilogram today.

 It is very difficult to understand why Indonesia as an agricultural country could suffer sudden shortage in the supply of Chili Pepper that has caused the price increase.


Photo:  Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Why is Gayus so Strong ?

Former Tax officer Gayus Tambunan (31) is one of the most famous person in Indonesia today. This can be seen from the fact that his name and face appear on the media everyday.

                                          Credit : Wikipedia.

Besides, Gayus is also an influential person, this can seen from the fact that although he has been arrested by the Police since June 2010, but he was able to leave the detention center 65 times and free to go wherever wants to, inside and out side Indonesia using passport under the name of Sony Laksono.

 

                                           Credit: The Jakarta Globe.

The question is : why is Gayus that strong ?
Is it because he is a former officer of the Tax Office who has helped several big companies solve their Tax matters, and therefore got lots of money from them ?
Is Gayus being used to discredit the name of the Chairman of the Golkar Party Aburizal Bakrie, as owner of some of those companies ?

I shall be very grateful to hear your opinion about this.

Suicide is Contagious

The number of people committing suicides in Indonesia has been increasing in the last few years.

In 2010, 81 cases of suicide were reported to the Jakarta Police. And according to a 2005 survey by the World Heath Organization, around 50,000 people committed suicide in the country every year.

In this regards, The Jakarta Globe has quoted a mental health expert in Jakarta as saying that this increase may have been caused by media coverage of people committing suicides.

Considering the above, I hope that the news media would be more careful in reporting about suicide case.

Photo: Courtesy of PhotoSearch

Politicians and Football

2010 has left us with many home works that must be carried out in 2011, i.e. the eradication of Corruption, Poverty and Injustice.

We have among others, the mysterious Bank Century bail-out, the shaky leadership of the Corruption Eradication Commission, and prosecution of Taxman Gayus Tambunan.

Besides, we also have the inter-religion relationship which is often shaky when it comes to rights of minorities.

On top of that, there are the maneuvers made by political parties to prepare for the general elections and presidential elections in 2014, whereby according to our Constitution President SBY must end his second office term.

Although there is still no official announcement, however major political parties have been giving signals to the public about who would be their Presidential candidates.

President SBY's Democrat Party has the First Lady Any Yudoyono. The Golkar Party has its Chairman Aburizal Bakrie. And the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle has the daughter of former President Megawati, Puan Maharani.

Various efforts have been made by the politicians, the most notable were made by Bakrie who gave Three Billion Rupiah and land area of Twenty Five Hectares to our national team as bonus for their success in reaching the Final Rounds of the recent AFF-Suzuki Cup football tournament.

Further, the Chairman of the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) Nurdin Halid, a member of Golkar Party, has publicly announced that his decision to lower the ticket price for the tournament from Seventy Five Thousand Rupiah to Fifty Thousand Rupiah was made based on the request of Bakrie as his Party's boss.

In response to Golkar Party's above moves, and growing public demands for Nurdin Halid's resignation from PSSI, Arifin Panigoro, member of the Reform Democratic Party who supported President SBY, has initiated the creation of the independent Indonesian Premier League (LPI). 

Nurdin Halid and PSSI have declared that LPI is illegal and requested the Police to stop its activities.

I felt that the above situation is very ugly and not healthy for the development of football in Indonesia which is now showing some improvements. Therefore in order to make football develop well, I strongly believe that PSSI should be managed by people who are free from any political background.

Image :  Courtesy of Mises.

Happy New Year Lyrics - ABBA

No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
It's the end of the party
And the morning seems so gray
So unlike yesterday
Now's the time for us to say...

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway...

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine...

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I