Former central banking chief cleared in banking scandal

JAKARTA (JP): Adrianus Mooy, the former governor of the central bank, has been virtually cleared of involvement in the Rp 1.3 trillion ($620 million) scandal at Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo), at least by President Soeharto.

Mooy, now Indonesia's ambassador to the European Union, was questioned at length by Soeharto at the Bina Graha presidential office about his knowledge of the scam, which occurred at the government-owned bank while he still headed Bank Indonesia.

The verdict, according to Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono, who attended the meeting, was that Mooy was unaware of the problem at the time since not every problem loan reached his desk.

Mooy served as governor of the central bank until March of last year.

He and a number of former senior government officials have been mentioned as possible accomplices in the scandal, particularly through their roles in pressuring Bapindo executives to grant $430 million in loans to Eddy Tansil, the businessman at the center of the investigation.

Two other officials implicated are Sudomo, currently the chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council, and J.B. Sumarlin, the chairman of the Supreme Audit Agency. Sudomo was the coordinating minister of political affairs and security and Sumarlin was the minister of finance, respectively, between 1989 and 1992 when the loans to Tansil were granted and disbursed.

In Mooy's case, there are questions as to why such a large problem escaped his attention, given that it is Bank Indonesia's responsibility to supervise the activities of all the country's banks.

"The Bank Indonesia governor didn't have to know about every credit because that is the responsibility of the bank's (Bapindo) directors. It's not the central bank's task to arrange credits.

"Wasn't there any supervision by the central bank? Sure there was... If the problem was big enough, the governor should have reported it to the government, in this case the President. This happened in the Bank Duta case," Moerdiono said.

Mechanism

Mooy told reporters after the meeting yesterday that the Bapindo problem never reached his desk simply because his subordinates at the central bank were busy trying to resolve the case and felt there was no need to bring it to him.

This is a procedural matter, he said. "Maybe it would be better for you to ask the current Bank Indonesia governor about the mechanism."

Moerdiono corroborated Mooy's remarks by saying that the ambassador explained to the president that he had never heard of Eddy Tansil nor his Golden Key Group until they became headline news.

"So how could we have been expected to know about the problem?" Moerdiono asked.

He said that he had also asked Attorney General Singgih, whose office is conducting the investigation, whether there was further need to question Mooy. "The Attorney General responded that there was no sufficient reason at this time to question Mooy."

"We needed this information while Mooy is still in the country," he added.

Meanwhile Singgih yesterday said that he welcomed the assistance of an American detective agency in tracking down the wealth of Tansil abroad, because a private agency is free from the bureaucratic procedures which beset his office.

The government has retained the services of Kroll Associates Inc. of New York, whose track record includes hunting the wealth of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and that of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

The government has seized many of the assets belonging to Tansil and Golden Key Group in Indonesia but believes that much more is stashed abroad.

Singgih stressed that Kroll's task would be simply to trace Tansil's deposits and other wealth overseas. (emb/imn)