Tom Lembong Case

THE Attorney General’s Office (AGO) appears to be increasingly abandoning the principle of equality of all citizens before the law. Since the administration of Joko Widodo, the institution has frequently become a ‘hammer’ to be used against those at odds with the interests of the government. The naming of Thomas Trikasih Lembong, alias Tom Lembong, as a suspect for corruption over the sugar import shows that this practice is continuing in the era of Prabowo Subianto.

Tom Lembong, Minister of Trade from 2015 to 2016, was deemed to have acted wrongly when he imported 105,000 tons of sugar. The AGO believes that this mistake cost the state Rp400 billion. This value is a projection of the profits made by eight importers. What should have happened, according to the AGO, is that these profits were paid into state funds if the sugar importers were state companies.

The principle of equality was not applied in this case because the AGO limited its investigation only to the Tom Lembong era. It did not question similar policies in other periods. During the Jokowi administration, there were six ministers of trade. As well as Tom Lembong, there were Rachmat Gobel, Enggartiasto Lukita, Agus Suparmanto, Muhammad Lutfi, and Zulkifli Hasan. All of them issued sugar import permits for various amounts.

Moreover, the AGO did not use the complete results of an investigation by the Supreme Audit Agency. A summary of the investigation in 2017, during the time of Rachmat Gobel, Tom Lembong and Enggartiasto, found mistakes in sugar imports amounting to 1.96 million tons. The report mentioned that sugar imports were not decided by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, there was no technical approval from the Agriculture Minister and there was no supporting data concerning the requirements for sugar.

Tom Lembong is accused of being in breach of Article 2 paragraph 1 and Article 3 of the Anti-Corruption Law. These two articles are often used by law enforcement officials against those accused of corruption in the making of policy. The accusations in these two articles are flexible: enriching oneself or a corporation due to a job or position in a way that causes financial losses to the state.

However, the AGO has yet to disclose sufficient evidence for these charges, for example, the flow of corrupt funds, as a reason for detaining Tom Lembong. It is no surprise that some people are beginning to suspect that the AGO is mixing legal affairs with politics, something that was a characteristic of the Jokowi administration.

Tom Lembong was originally a member of Jokowi’s core campaign team in the 2014 General Elections. Thanks to this position, he was made Head of the Investment Coordinating Board, before becoming Minister of Trade. Dismissed from the cabinet in 2016, he joined a colleague who had suffered a similar fate: Anies Baswedan, the National Education Minister during the same period. When Anies ran for the presidency in 2024, Tom Lembong was by his side.

During the campaign, Tom Lembong was heavily involved in the debate with the Prabowo-Gibran Rakabuming Raka candidate pairing, particularly regarding the downstreaming of nickel. Gibran, Jokowi’s son, specifically mentioned his name during the vice-presidential debate on January 21. There is speculation that the detention of Tom Lembong and the legal process against him is the result of these political events.

The AGO should provide strong evidence for the subsequent trial. If they only rely on procedural errors, this means the AGO has become a political tool of the government, especially if these same charges are not laid against other ministers who made similar decisions regarding imports using the same procedures. President Prabowo Subianto, as the boss of the Attorney General, should make sure that there is no politicization of the law during his administration.