Bulog announces lower annual financial surplus

Bulog announces lower annual financial surplus

JAKARTA (JP): The National Logistics Agency (Bulog) yesterday
announced a financial surplus of Rp 13.6 billion (US$5.91
million) for the 1995/1996 fiscal year, down from Rp 133 billion
in 1994/1995.

Bulog Chief Beddu Amang said despite the drop, Bulog was
better off than it was three years ago, when it suffered a Rp 115
billion deficit in 1993/1994.

"The agency's accumulative surplus over the last three years
stands at around Rp 28 billion," Beddu told reporters after
receiving a bill of clean (unqualified) opinion from the
Development Finance Comptroller for the agency.

Beddu said the drop in Bulog's surplus resulted from the
agency's market and buffer-stocking operations.

"Bulog is a non-profit agency responsible for keeping the
stability of foodstuff prices," he said. "Our main job is
stabilization, not profit seeking."

He said the finance comptroller audited not only the agency's
financial records but its market and buffer-stocking operations
as well.

"On the one hand, it is safe to have large stocks. On the
other, it is very costly to store foodstuff," he said.

Bulog was set up in 1967 to control the distribution of
several important commodities, assure food security and maintain
price stability through market operations and buffer-stocking
mechanisms.

The government has assigned the agency as the sole authority
to import and distribute rice and other agricultural commodities
such as sugar, wheat, corn and soybean.

Beddu said yesterday Bulog was planning to open new warehouses
in remote areas to guarantee that food supplies reached people
there. "President Soeharto gave us this instruction earlier this
month," he said.

Beddu said Bulog would establish new warehouses in areas where
it had no warehouse access or where it rented warehouses from
state-owned firms and private companies.

In the first phase of the project, 36 warehouses would be
built or rented in 14 provinces outside Java. Most of the
warehouses would be in the eastern part of Indonesia, he said.

The warehouses would have a capacity of 500 tons to 1,000 tons
each and would store essential commodities controlled by Bulog.
An investment of Rp 20 billion, from Bulog's current surplus,
would be used for the first phase which is expected to be
completed next year. According to Beddu, the project is already
underway.

Beddu said the warehouses were particularly important to civil
servants and members of the Armed Forces, many of whom must
travel miles to Bulog warehouses for their monthly allocation of
rice.

They have to pay travel expenses and carry the supplies on
their own. "Sometimes they bring only half of their allocated
rice home; the other half is spent on travel expenses," he said.

Beddu said that apart from the Rp 20 billion used to build the
new warehouses, Bulog would provide another Rp 5 billion each
year to cover the costs of transporting commodities to the new
warehouses. (pwn)