Company bill gets mixed reactions from DPR members
JAKARTA (JP): The four factions within the House of Representatives (DPR) gave mixed reactions to the government- proposed bill on limited liability companies in a plenary hearing with the Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman yesterday.
The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) suggested that the House set up a special team to discuss the bill more thoroughly due to its complexities and significance.
"We must evade our bad experience in the past because the bill will considerably shape the future of our economic development," said the spokesman for the PDI, B.N. Marbun.
PDI called on members of the House to work on the bill in a bipartisan fashion, he said.
He said that the House should make the bill "a legal product instead of merely a political product."
Mohammad Rusdy Thahir, a spokesman for Golkar, stressed yesterday the need to clarify the status of commissioners and directors in limited firms.
He said business people in the country have a bad habit of appointing unqualified people as commissioners or directors of companies.
According to Golkar, such appointments are made to conceal the legal responsibility of the firms' real owners.
This trick has been revealed in the notorious Golden Key fraud case, in which some unqualified personnel were positioned to be dummy commissioners. Golden Key chief Eddy Tansil, along with some bank executives, are currently facing trial in Jakarta.
The government submitted the bill on limited-liability companies (Perseroan Terbatas), which contains 128 articles, last March after 20 years of work.
The Ministry of Justice initially proposed the bill in 1974 to the State Secretariat but changes in the business world and disputes on principles forced several revisions.
Clarity
Thahir said yesterday that the bill should be modified to clarify the legal responsibilities of major shareholders, directors and commissioners.
According to Golkar, the lack of precise legal distinctions on the roles of the boards of directors and commissioners may lead to illegal activities.
Thahir demanded that the House pay attention to this case unless it wants to frequently see disastrous frauds emerge in the future.
A spokesman for the Armed Forces faction, Taufiequrochman, stressed that the bill should not only accommodate rapid economic development but also impose the basic principles of the 1945 Constitution.
The constitution says that the national economy should be organized as a common endeavor based upon the principle of a family system.
A spokesman for the Moslem United Development Party (PPP), Yudo Paripurno, questioned whether the bill has already considered the issue of unequal distribution of wealth.
Paripurno noted that the bill, which if enacted requires every share issuance to be offered to existing shareholders prior to the public, needs some adjustment.
According to PPP, the public has the right to buy the shares of a company in a public offering without being surpassed by existing shareholders.
Paripurno raised more issues regarding the composition of shareholders, company statutes, capital expansion and the bill's preamble. (09)