BI official accused of malfeasance

BANDUNG, West Java: The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) will file on Friday a report to the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) on alleged malfeasance by a Bank Indonesia (BI) official in the supplying of paper for the Rp 1,000 and Rp 5,000 bank notes.

"After a month-long investigation we have found evidence that a Korean company had won the bid to be the supplier of the paper when it was opened for tender in 1999. However, it was opened for tender again and PT Pura Barutaman was declared the winner by Aulia Pohan, a central bank director," ICW coordinator Teten told reporters on Wednesday.

PT Pura was awarded the right to supply all the paper needed for the Rp 5,000 bank notes and 70 percent of the paper needed for the Rp 1,000 notes. The other 30 percent was awarded to the Koran company.

Teten said it was the state-owned bank note printing company Perum Percetakan Uang Republik Indonesia (Peruri) which had the full authority to arrange the tender for the supply of paper for the rupiah bank notes, he said.

The contract won by PT Pura Barutaman was worth around US$7 million, Teten said.

"Aulia Pohan's intervention was wrong. He also has to be responsible for the shortage of the Rp 5,000 and Rp 1,000 notes as the rough and creased inferior quality paper supplied by PT Bura Barutaman was rejected by the printing machine," Teten said.

"Moreover, we also found proof that PT Pura along with BI's Employee Welfare Foundation had set up a company to print bank notes. The company had asked for loans from Bank Niaga and Standard Chattered, saying that they needed them to buy a bank note printing machine," Teten said.

The machine was reportedly imported from Taiwan but when it reached Singapore, its country of origin was changed to Germany, he said.

"ICW has two different bills as evidence and when we traced them back to Germany, the company whose label was on the printing machine turned out to be a producer of agricultural devices," Teten explained.(25/edt)