Former minister admits giving privileges to Goro

JAKARTA (JP): Former minister for cooperatives and small enterprises Subiakto Tjakrawerdaya said on Thursday that he had planned to assign PT Goro Batara Sakti as a coordinating body to oversee all cooperatives in Indonesia.

Subiakto added that he had planned to task Goro to take over the roles of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) in maintaining food supplies as an effort to stabilize food prices.

"Due to this plan, I admit that my ministry had given some privileges to PT Goro," Subiakto told the South Jakarta District Court during a hearing of the corruption case on the land- exchange deal between Goro and Bulog.

When asked by state prosecutor Fahmi whether he knew Goro had manipulated privileges given to him by his office, Subiakto said: "I didn't know that the land exchange agreement between Bulog and PT Goro had violated the law or caused losses to the state. All I know is that the agreement was clear and I gave my approval to it."

Subiakto was giving his testimony as a witness to a Rp 95.4 billion (US$8.6 million) corruption case in which former Bulog chief Beddu Amang was a suspect.

It was in the Goro case that former president Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra and his business associate Ricardo Gelael were both sentenced to 18 months in jail. Tommy was the owner of Goro.

Subiakto, known as a close friend of Tommy served twice in Soeharto's Cabinet before the latter was forced to resign in 1998, denied that he gave some privileges to Goro due to his closeness with the Soeharto family.

"I had proposed the project to other retail companies such as Makro and Hero. But the two had rejected our proposal," Subiakto said.

Meanwhile, another witness, Rahardi Ramelan, Beddu's successor, failed to appear in court as he was still abroad. Rahardi, however, gave a written testimony read by the prosecutor.

"As the chief of Bulog, I canceled the (land exchange) agreement between Bulog and PT Goro on March, 31, 1999. It was not aimed to close the alleged corruption case. I did this purely because of Goro's poor performance at managing the project," Rahardi said in his testimony.

The trial was adjourned until July 5. (02)