Minister of Communications and Digital Affairs Committed to Fully Supporting Internal Investigations, Combating Online Gambling

Minister of Communications and Digital Affairs Meutya Hafid conveys the developments and commitment of her ministry to fully supporting the investigation process related to the arrest of a number of her ministry’s personnel who were involved in online gambling.

President Prabowo Subianto received Minister of Communications and Digital Affairs Meutya Hafid at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, Friday (11/01). In the meeting, Meutya conveyed the developments and commitment of her ministry to fully supporting the investigation process related to the arrest of a number of her ministry’s personnel who were involved in online gambling.

“We strongly support and once again open the door to the police to carry out an internal investigation and develop it if necessary, including giving them access if they must search through our ministry’s office. For us, this is good, once again as an effort to clean up our ministry so that we can perform our tasks and duties properly as mandated by the President,” said Meutya in her statement to the media after the meeting.

Meutya also said that her ministry is currently taking special measures on certain floors in her ministry’s office as an effort to support the investigation process. She has also issued a Ministerial Instruction to ensure that all her staff collaborate with the police in order to find out any other possible involvements.

“We need to ensure that all officials and civil servants in the Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs work to help the police to find out if there are other personnel of the ministry who must also be investigated as the follow-ups of the process,” said Meutya.

In addition, the ministry also initiated a roll call three times a day at each shift change, in which all the personnel present must sing the national anthem “Indonesia Raya”. According to Meutya, this activity aims to strengthen the spirit of nationalism among the ministry’s personnel.

“We hope this will also raise morale among our ministry’s personnel and remind us that we are all here to serve our Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, as always reminded by the President,” said Meutya.

In the meeting with President Prabowo, Meutya also received encouragement to continue fighting for the eradication of online gambling, which becomes her main priority. In fact, within the first 10 days after President Prabowo’s inauguration, the Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs has succeeded in closing 187 thousand online gambling sites, a figure that shows a significant increase compared to the previous one.

“This figure is not an achievement. No. We have seen the sharp increase in the last 10 days and we may still add to it. Whatever it is, our effort to eradicate online gambling is not an achievement as long as online gambling still exists. So, I am not saying that it is our achievement, but at least we have made a positive trend in the last 10 days in which we have taken down 187 thousand online gambling sites,” said Meutya.

Meutya also stated the plans to involve more supervisors from the digital community in order to eliminate chances for cybercriminals, including online gambling operators. In addition, she also promised to provide regular reports on the closures of online gambling sites, both weekly and daily, to make it easier for the public to monitor the ministry’s performance.

“This step also serves as our evaluation. If our performance goes down, the public can see why it goes down. So please, keep supervising us,” said Meutya. (BPMI of Presidential Secretariat/ABD) (TM/MMB)