Fake documents discovered in sugar scandal

Zakki P. Hakim and Abdul Khalik, Jakarta

The Ministry of Industry and Trade said on Wednesday that sugar imported by the Association of Village Cooperatives (Inkud) from Bangkok was illegal, but the former denied any role in the affair as accused by the latter.

Director General of Foreign Trade at the ministry Sudar SA denied that he and minister Rini Soewandi had met with Inkud chairman Nurdin Halid to personally arrange Inkud's cooperation with state-owned plantation firm PTPN X in the importation of sugar.

PTPN X is one of only five state companies licensed by the ministry to import sugar. The limitation is aimed at protecting local sugarcane farmers from cheaper, imported sugar.

Sudar claimed that he did not know why PTPN X worked with Inkud, and said that it was PTPN X's prerogative to choose a third-party partner if the company lacked funds or resources to carry out the importation by itself.

Nurdin told lawmakers that the Ministry of Industry and Trade had authorized Inkud to import the sugar during his meeting with Sudar and Rini on Nov. 19, 2003.

Inkud, which is supposed to protect the interests of farmers, has been at the center of the sugar scandal. The case grabbed the headlines when a sugarcane farmers' association discovered 56,000 tons of imported sugar in several warehouses in Jakarta, Bekasi and Bogor. The police later announced they had confiscated some 65,000 tons of sugar, believed to have been imported illegally.

Separately, Director General of Customs and Excise Eddy Abdurrachman revealed on Wednesday that the documentation (bills of lading) used by PT Phoenix in Bangkok to ship much of the sugar were fake.

"We have compared the bills of lading used to apply for eigenlossing (warehousing) with the genuine shipping documents in Bangkok. We come to a conclusion that the documents used for eigenlossing were fake," said Eddy on the sidelines of a hearing with House of Representatives Commission V on the issue.

He added that the fake bills of lading stated that all of the sugar was shipped before April 30, while the genuine documents said that the sugar was shipped in May.

He also stated that seven ships used fake documentation to carry a total 42,900 tons of sugar into the country.

Elsewhere, Sudar said that according to Ministerial Decree No. 643 (which authorized PTPN X to import some 108,000 tons of sugar), the commodity was not permitted to arrive in the country after April 30. This means that sugar arriving after that date was unauthorized, he said.

Previously, Inkud insisted that based on the decree, sugar shipped from Bangkok before April 30 was authorized.

Meanwhile, National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Suyitno Landung Sudjono said that the police had also discovered that the eigenlossing documents used by the importers were fake.

"We have analyzed the documents and found many irregularities such as an absence of headings and dubious signatures," he said.

He added that officials from Inkud and its consortium, as well as people from PT Phoenix, could be named as suspects in the case.

"We shall focus on them because they fabricated the documents as if they were acting on behalf of PTPN X, while officials from PTPN X knew nothing about it," said Suyitno.

He promised that suspects would be declared within a week, pending completion of the investigation.