Former Unibank workers demand severance and service payments

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

More than 150 former employees of the recently-closed Unibank in Medan, North Sumatra, have staged a demonstration, demanding the bank's former management meet its obligations in the wake of the bank's closure.

The demonstrators, who staged their protest at the now closed bank building on Jl. MT Haryono, said the bank's former management should give a guarantee that they would receive severance and service payments in accordance with the law.

They said they would file a lawsuit against management if it failed to meet their demands.

The publicly-listed Unibank was officially closed by the central bank last Monday because of its worsening financial situation following the channeling of massive loans to companies belonging to the bank's former controlling owner Sukanto Tanoto.

Besides the demonstrators, hundreds of the bank's former customers went to the building to seek an official explanation of the bank's closure and the status of their deposits with the bank. They also expressed disappointment at the failure of the bank's management to provide an explanation of the fate of their deposits.

Halim, a businessman in Kisaran, around 160 kilometers south of the city, said he learnt of the bank's closure from a television news broadcast, which prompted him to come to the city to seek an official explanation from the former management.

"It has been impossible for me to gain a satisfactory explanation from the police guarding the bank building," he said, adding that he had been a customer of the bank since 1997, having been attracted by its low administration fee and tax rate.

Halim said he would place his funds with a more credible bank after the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), which took over Unibank's financial obligations, returned his Rp 35 million deposit.

Gunawan, who runs a convention business in the city, bemoaned the bank's closure, which had forced him to cancel three deals worth Rp 20 million during the week.

"The business deals had to be canceled because I could not withdraw cash from the bank," he said, adding that the bank's closure has disturbed his business's cash flow.

IBRA was expected to pay Unibank's obligation to its customers on Nov. 5, 2001 as it had pledged.

Buha Tambunan, former member of the commissioner board of the pulp and paper company PT Inti Indorayon Utama (IIU), in which he is also a minority shareholder, said that the company had deposited its funds with the bank.

He said around 50 percent of the third party liabilities of Rp 505 billion held by the bank belonged to Indorayon.

"Until 2000, Indorayon's funds had been deposited with the closed bank, but I don't know whether that continued until the bank's closure because I haven't held any position with the company for the past year," he said.