Corruption team intensifies investigation into Telkom
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government-sponsored interdepartmental corruption eradication team is intensifying its investigation into corruption allegations at state telecommunication company PT Telkom, following initial evidence of graft allegedly committed by the company's management.
The team's coordinator and the Attorney General's deputy for special crimes Hendarman Supandji said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had requested the team to seriously probe graft indications in Telkom due to the potentially huge state losses.
"President Susilo asked about the progress in our investigation into Telkom. I told him we would soon raise the status of the investigation from inquiry to prosecution," Hendarman said after meeting the President on Monday.
The team is expected to name suspects next week after gathering more information from witnesses.
"At present, we can't disclose the names of the suspects or indicate the involvement of the board of directors ... But for sure, there is early evidence of crimes committed by a number of the company's officials," Hendarman said.
He hinted that his team has investigated graft involving an amendment to the joint operating contract with PT Mitra Global Telekomunikasi Indonesia (MGTI), which was conducted in January last year.
Telkom took over the rights to build and operate the fixed lines network for Yogyakarta and Central Java from MGTI. Under the initial contract, MGTI was responsible to build, finance and manage the telecommunications system in the two provinces.
With the change in the contract, Telkom was to take over management, supervision and control of operations in the two provinces starting in February last year until the joint contract expires on Dec. 31, 2010.
However, under the new contract Telkom should pay an annual payment to MGTI within the contract period totaling US$517 million, aside from assuming full responsibility to build and finance new telecommunication facilities in the two provinces.
After the contract expires, Telkom will fully own MGTI.
Sources at the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises said the deal had put Telkom in an unfavorable condition since the amount of the funds spent within the contract period for taking over MGTI would be higher than buying the company outright in the first place.
All MGTI shareholders, including Telkom's rival state telecommunications firm PT Indonesian Satellite Corp. (Indosat), Widya Duta Infotel, Telstra Global Ltd, NTT Finance and Sumitomo Corporation agreed to sell their entire stake to PT Alberta Telecommunication (Alberta) for a total of $266 million in January last year.
Alberta is an investment company owned by PT Saratoga Investama Sedaya, an investment firm partly owned by Edwin Suryajaya -- the son of William Suryajaya, the founder of automotive conglomerate PT Astra International -- and Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno.
"Telkom should have paid some $266 million instead of Rp 517 million for the MGTI stake. They said they didn't have the funds to buy back MGTI at that time, but they should have explored other financing resources to buy the share at a lower price," said the source.
Telkom's head of investor relations, Rochiman Soekarno, however, claimed the company was unaware of a corruption investigation by the anticorruption team since no officials have been summoned for questioning.
"As far as I know, there's no investigation into corruption charges in Telkom. I read the story a few days ago in the newspaper," he said.
Aside from the MGTI deal, the anticorruption team is also probing allegations of kickbacks during the construction of network infrastructure for Telkom's latest cellular technology Telkom Flexi.