Fraud in the MSAA

Fraud in the MSAA

Yesterday (Wednesday) was the turn of businessman, Sjamsul Nursalim, who owes the state Rp 28 trillion, to appear before the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), some weeks after the Salim Group appeared before the agency to clarify its Rp 54 trillion debt.

The two are the largest debtors to the state. Both of them have signed the Master Settlement and Acquisition Agreement (MSAA) late in 1998. A legal consultant of the government monitored the performance of the two and concluded that they have broken their promise.

It is a real pity that the government has been too slow in acting against the breach in the MSAA, which has caused financial losses amounting to trillions of rupiah to the state. Since the beginning, the MSAA made by the government's financial advisers has already smacked of fraud.

The setting up of the MSAA must be traced based on the law, to catch collaborators who have caused losses to the state.

It is indeed a little bit too late to do that, as four years is a long time for collaborators to erase footprints. But at least, the people can learn a valuable political lesson that policy-makers should put forward the interest of the public, instead of their own.

-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta