Four companies blacklisted for faking documents

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration announced yesterday that four Jakarta-based companies have been blacklisted for counterfeiting documents for tenders on projects for the North Sumatra provincial government.

H. Harun Al Rasyid, acting chairman of the city's pre- qualification committee, said that the fact the documents were counterfeit was discovered when the tender committee sent them to the municipal administration for confirmation on Wednesday.

The four blacklisted companies were among the 24 firms submitting tenders for the procurement of medical equipment under financial assistance from the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund, he said.

"Of the 24 companies taking part in the tender, 14 were from Jakarta and 10 from Medan," he said.

The four blacklisted firms are PT Bhias Metrindo, CV Naga Tunggal, PT Meditama Duta Prakara and PT Dharma Niaga.

Harun explained that the documents were counterfeited by the attaching of notarized copies of the developers' identity cards to their applications.

He reiterated that the pre-qualification committee had not issued or published notarized identity cards for the bidders. "Any form of notarized identity cards, therefore, should be considered counterfeit," he said.

Harun said in order to prevent such fraud from happening again, the pre-qualification committee is advising companies, or developers, holding the bidding identity cards to check to see whether they are registered. They can do this by submitting their cards to the committee.

He said that the committee will issue a confirmation letter stating that the identity cards are registered on the city's list of potential developers, which is based on a gubernatorial decree.

Beware

Harun also urged other institutions, state-owned companies, regional government-owned firms and tender committees to beware of such illegitimate practices.

"Don't hesitate to report any irregularities dealing with Jakarta-based companies to the Jakarta pre-qualification committee on Jl. Merdeka Selatan 8-9, Blok E, Jakarta, as soon as you discover any documents that do not seem to be valid," he added.

In a related development, Harun announced recently that many contractors are operating with counterfeit documents in the city. He said that 40 counterfeit documents were confiscated in a number of tenders for the construction of projects owned by city- owned companies or municipal institutions.

"It seems to us that the syndicate producing these counterfeit documents is well organized," said Harun, a former mayor of South Jakarta.

He pointed out that the brokers grouped in the suspected syndicate can counterfeit the original form for recommended contractors along with the serial number and the official stamp of the committee. The documents are also forged with the signatures of the officers in authority.

Harun quoted one of the suspects as saying that the syndicate has forged at least 1,000 forms and all of them were believed to have been sold. (hhr)