Fair solution expected to Texmaco's credit scam

Fair solution expected to Texmaco's credit scam

SUBANG, West Java (JP): Workers employed in factories
belonging to the Texmaco Group called for an immediate and fair
solution to the company's loan scandal so they could be more
certain of their future.

Agoes S., chairman of the All-Indonesian Workers Union (SPSI)
branch at PT Perkasa Engineering, the group's unit producing
vehicles, said the Texmaco Group's more than 50,000 workers did
not want to be used as an excuse for the Attorney General's
Office not to investigate the scandal thoroughly.

At the same time, he urged the government to recognize the
group and the workers as a national asset which must be given due
attention.

"The Attorney General's Office should go ahead with its
investigation into the case and, even, bring it to court, but the
government should be wise in safeguarding our future and
families," he said during a visit by the FSPSI's central board to
the plant here on Saturday.

Marimutu Sinivasan, owner of the giant Texmaco business group,
has been named as a suspect in a Rp 9.6 trillion loan scandal at
state banks.

Texmaco allegedly obtained loans, mostly in preshipment export
facilities, between November 1997 and February 1998 from Bank
Indonesia, through Bank Negara Indonesia and Bank Rakyat
Indonesia. The loans were allegedly facilitated by the
intervention of then president Soeharto.

Texmaco is a publicly listed company with interests in
textiles and heavy machinery. Sinivasan is an associate of
Soeharto.

FSPSI chairman Jacob Nuwa Wea urged the government on Saturday
to give all companies under the group time to continue their
operations in order to repay the group's local and foreign debts.

"It will be unwise and unfair if the government decides to
freeze the group's operations, because apart from being a
national asset, the group employs tens of thousands of workers.
This means the fate of hundreds of thousands of people depend on
the companies' survival," he said. (rms)