The ministry's Head of Public Relations and Public Information Bureau, Kuntoro Boga Andri, made the statement.
"The minister has firmly said that no one can intervene (with the auction). An independent and professional team will select the officials, with the goal of realizing Indonesia's dream of becoming food self-sufficient," Andri remarked in Jakarta on Tuesday.
He further emphasized that Minister Sulaiman had pushed for ensuring that the auction process is free from corruption, collusion, and nepotism, as it is meant to rotate official positions and fill in those that have been vacant.
"There will be plenty of positions that will be refreshed or refilled. He (Minister Sulaiman) demanded that the bureaucratic reform running at the Agriculture Ministry be properly monitored," he pointed out.
During his earlier term as agriculture minister for the 2014-2019 period, Sulaiman consistently took a firm stance on crimes committed in the agriculture sector while maintaining clean bureaucracy at the Agriculture Ministry.
As a result, Indonesia successfully reached the status of being food self-sufficient in 2017, 2019, and 2020.
As the minister of agriculture, Sulaiman has processed demotion and mutation of over 1,500 problematic employees at the ministry and brought 700 food mafias to justice.
Moreover, he has developed a gratification supervisory system at the Agriculture Ministry and has been consistently rejecting any forms of gratification.
The supervisory system led the ministry to receive an award from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) during the commemoration of World Anti-Corruption Day in December 2017.
"He (Sulaiman), up until now, has been tenaciously ensuring that there are no legal violations committed in every operation of the Agriculture Ministry, including its procurement of goods and services," Andri concluded.
