'Bang' Ali clarifies

'Bang' Ali clarifies

From Forum Keadilan

I have an objection to a news item published in Forum No. 16 of the weekly newsmagazine, Forum Keadilan. On page 54, column 3 it said, "Indeed, Senayan is not a mere national asset, but also has historical value. The complex was built during the time of president Sukarno as a venue for the 1962 Asian Games. During the New Order period, the area began to fragment. In 1971, Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin, for example, allowed PT Indobuildco to build the Jakarta Hilton Hotel close to the Semanggi Bridge..."

My objection is to what was quoted above because upon reading it, one may get the impression that I was also one of those fragmenting the Senayan area. In fact, while I was the Jakarta governor, I was assigned to organize facilities for a congress of the PATA Asia-Pacific Conference. For this purpose, I had to provide accommodation for about 2,000 to 3,000 people and a convention hall for a larger number. In my opinion, the best place for this was Senayan. But then where would the convention be? Where would the hotel be? Finally, a site on the corner of the Senayan area was chosen for the hotel. This hotel was to accommodate foreign guests. Domestic delegates could be accommodated at other hotels. It would be cheaper this way. The Hilton Hotel was designated only for foreign delegates. This principle was also adopted when the Non-Aligned Summit was held here several years ago.

To build the hotel, I requested help from Pertamina. My reason was that Pertamina had many subsidiaries, including one dealing in the hotel business, namely Patra Jasa, which operated in Cirebon and Bali. As a subsidiary of Pertamina, Patra Jasa was also a state company. So, I contacted Ibnu Sutowo and asked him to help. "Help us. This is a national project. You can have a hotel built."

What was in my mind then was that Pertamina would assign Patra Jasa to build the hotel, so it would be owned by the state. The land was owned by the state also and when I officially sold it I gave away a great concession indeed. So back then, I thought that the state's facilities would still be controlled by the state.

After the hotel was built, it suddenly became the property of Indobuildco. I did not learn about it until after it became Indobuildco's property.

What I cannot understand about the report in Forum is that it gives the impression that I was committing corruption, collusion and nepotism. The report fails to mention anything about Pertamina. It wrote that I gave an opportunity to PT Indobuildco. In fact, I did not know anything about Indobuildco until the building of the hotel was completed. Therefore, I cannot accept this part of the report. In fact, I asked Pertamina to build the hotel. I never gave any opportunity to Indobuildco to build the hotel. To learn later on that Pertamina belonged to Indobuildco was not of my knowledge. Neither did I know if the contractor who built the hotel got money from Pertamina or Indobuildco.

ALI SADIKIN

Former Jakarta governor