Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is seeking an additional budget allocation of Rp87.7 billion next year to step up its efforts to handle corruption cases along with the National Police and the Attorney Generals Office.

"In 2017, KPK plans to increase the role of other law enforcement agencies, including the police and public prosecutors offices, to fight corruption cases. It will task them with handling 200 corruption cases. Also, for that, we will involve district police, provincial police, public prosecutors offices and high public prosecutors offices," KPK Chairman Agus Rahardjo said in a hearing at the House of Representatives (DPR)s Commission III at the parliament building here on Tuesday.

He informed that if the proposal for additional budget allocation of Rp87.7 billion is approved, KPK will write to the DPRs budget committee and the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) to follow up on it.

The anti-graft body has proposed a total budget allocation of Rp766.78 billion for 2017, down Rp295 billion from Rp1.061 trillion in the 2016 state budget.

"The KPK currently handles 60 to 70 cases every year. We want the system to work as expected so that we do not merely handle those corruption cases in which suspects are caught red-handed. We want to handle more cases in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies, including the district police, the provincial police, the public prosecutors offices and the high public prosecutors offices," he explained. (*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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