Fire destroys important documents at BPKP office
JAKARTA (JP): Documents related to the alleged "mishandling" of multibillion dollar emergency supports from Bank Indonesia have allegedly turned into ashes in a fire that gutted the third floor of the Development and Finance Comptroller's (BPKP) office here on Thursday afternoon.
BPKP executives and staff strongly believed that the incident had been intentionally designed by parties aimed at destroying the papers, most of which were kept at the third-floor offices of the four-story building.
BPKP's deputy chief for administrative affairs Chatim Baidaei quoted some of his staff as saying that some of them smelled fuel on the third floor before the fire.
No fatalities were reported in the fire that started at 1:20 p.m.
Some 14 fire engines, including two from state oil firm Pertamina, were dispatched to the site on the busy Jl. Hayam Wuruk in Central Jakarta.
The firemen managed to extinguish the fire some four hours later.
Until late in the evening, none of the BPKP executives could be reached for confirmation of their findings concerning damages from the fire.
Gambir subprecinct police chief, Asst. Supt. Slamet Rijanto, only said that the fire was being investigated.
His men, he said, have began questioning a number of people, including cleaning service workers and security guards at the building.
Chatim suspected that the fire was arson.
"All data and documents related to the cases (the central bank's liquidity support to ailing banks and state institutions), particularly the new ones, had been stored on the gutted floor," Chatim advised.
He added that the floor was home to the offices of, among others, BPKP head Arie Sulendro and deputies for special cases.
"But we hope that we have back-up copies since Acting Deputy VII for special cases, Padmo Mihardjo, once proposed to film all the data for security reasons," Chatim was quoted as saying by Astaga.com.
The alleged mishandling of the government's Rp 144.5 trillion emergency loans is being investigated by the Supreme Audit Agency with the help of other institutions, including BPKP.
The loans were supposed to be used by the banks to reimburse depositors' money. But BPK said in its recent report that the banks used the money for other purposes, including currency speculation, lending to affiliated business groups and for repaying subordinated loans.
The agency laid the blame for the misuse of the huge liquidity credits squarely on the extremely poor quality of the central bank's supervision.
The report said the central bank depended too much on off-site supervision (assessing written reports), whereas many commercial banks had manipulated their financial reports for years.
The loans have become a government obligation to the central bank. The government will issue bonds to cover the debt, but it wants to clarify first whether there was any wrongdoing in the granting of the loans.
More than Rp 100 trillion of the loans were channeled to five banks -- the nationalized Bank Central Asia (BCA), Bank Danamon and the now defunct Bank Subentra, Bank Umum Nasional (BUN) and Bank BDNI.
The previous government signed an agreement with the owners of those banks defining a mechanism for payment of their obligations, but the present government has said it would revise the that agreement on grounds that it only benefited the former bank owners at the expense of the state and taxpayers.
The Thursday fire reminds many of several fires in 1997 that took place at the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) building, the Ministry of Finance complex, and the Bank Indonesia (BI) building.
Police forensic experts concluded that those the three fires were the work of arsonists and each of the incidents were related. But the police have failed to identify any suspects or masterminds behind the fires. (07/bsr)