City Council does not know where its assets are

City Council does not know where its assets are

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Poor documentation of contracts with private companies caused
difficulties for the city administration in tracing a number of
its rented assets, officials admitted on Saturday.

Assistant to the city secretary for economic affairs Hari
Sandjojo blamed the situation on unclear records made by past
officials and their private business partners.

"How do we know the status of our assets in a joint venture
company if we have no documents on how the agreement was made,"
Hari told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

He said the administration was investigating a number of
unclear agreements made in the past.

Separately, head of the Jakarta Asset Bureau Rama Bhudi
confirmed that the city administration had set up a team to
investigate city assets.

But, the team, whose members comprise of officials from the
asset bureau, legal bureau, economic bureau, and the city assets
and investment management board, had not announced the results of
the investigation, Rama said.

Among the assets under investigation was land in 12 locations
formerly under the management of the now defunct City Investment
Management Board (BPIPM), he said.

"The most difficult hurdle is investigating assets formerly
managed by BPIPM," he claimed without giving further details.

However, the officials' statements drew criticism from
councillors of City Council Commission B for economic affairs.

Commission B secretary Dani Anwar said the city administration
officials could not just claim that they had no documents without
conducting any further investigation into the assets.

"We need to establish that the city assets are safe as we have
bad examples of this in the past," Dani of the Justice Party said
on Saturday.

He said that some extensions of agreements on the rented
assets, which might cause losses to the city, were made by the
current officials.

He revealed that an agreement made between the city
administration and PT Jaya Fibrindo Karsa Pratama to manage a
property on Jl. Krapu No. 10, Pasar Ikan, North Jakarta was
extended on Jan. 1 2001.

Meanwhile, Commission B member Ugiek Soegihardjo said that the
city administration had lost the Kuta Jaya Hotel in Bali, which
was one of its assets, when the hotel was sold when the city's
business partner went bankrupt.

"The hotel was sold and the city administration got nothing,"
Ugiek said, adding that the majority of city administration'
partners invested only a small amount of money and government
land was used as collateral to borrow money from the banks.

He stressed the need to set up a special committee to clarify
the current status of all assets being rented by the private
companies.

Commission B has agreed to set up a special committee to try
to secure 12 former BPIPM assets as the city administration could
not explain its shares in those companies.

Besides those assets, the special committee will investigate
other assets, including 10,000 square meters of land on Jl. Raya
Sumur Timur, East Jakarta, 8,730.5 square meters of land on Jl.
Pulo Kambing, East Jakarta, and 6,600 square meters of land in
Pulo Gadung industrial estate in East Jakarta.