Government fights fuel smuggling activities
Government fights fuel smuggling activities
JAKARTA (JP): The government will establish a joint team
comprising state oil and gas company Pertamina, the military, the
police force and the General Attorney's Office to fight rampant
fuel smuggling activities, a senior government official says.
Inspector General Muzani Syukur of the Ministry of Mines and
Energy said last week that the team would not only investigate
fuel smugglers but would also bring them to court.
"There'll be an investigating team, a supervising team and an
execution team," Muzani announced after attending a meeting
between Minister of Mines and Energy Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
Pertamina executives and military senior officers.
At the very least, he said, it would help increase
transparency in Pertamina's distribution of subsidized fuel.
The state company has come under fire during the past few
weeks over reports of alleged fuel smuggling activities.
Analysts have said that Pertamina, which is responsible for
the distribution of fuel, should have long known about the
illegal activity.
Pertamina, however, said it was beyond its power to control
fuel usage once the state company sold the fuel to the industrial
market.
Muzani said the new team would replace another team which
Pertamina earlier establish with the Coordinating Agency to
Support the Strengthening of National Stability (Bakorstanas).
The old team, which he called Bamipal, focused only on
irregularities of fuel usage at sea and broke up after the
government dissolved Bakorstanas last February, Muzani added.
He said that Pertamina in cooperation with Bakorstanas had
intended to only study the misuse of subsidized fuel by ship
owners, before cracking down on them.
"The new team might start working next month," Muzani said,
adding that it would work closely with the Ministry of
Communications and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Bamipal former head Soenaryo Koesman said his team had found
irregularities amounting to some Rp 263 billion (US$33 million)
between February 1999 and February this year.
He attributed the losses to 141 shipping companies that had
misused the subsidized fuel.
According to him, the shipping companies were licensed for
domestic routes, but took foreign routes instead, which was
subject to fuel priced at international rates.
Director of supply and domestic trade for Pertamina Harry
Poernomo said the shipping companies had paid the difference in
price to Pertamina.
"Most of them were cargo ships carrying containers," he said,
adding that Pertamina did not seek legal action against them as
they were its customers.
Pertamina plans to increase the price of diesel fuel sold to
businesses to the international level as part of its program to
reduce its fuel subsidy.
Diesel fuel is sold domestically for Rp 600 per liter as
compared to Rp 2,000 per liter on the international market.
The move, however, sparked criticism from the Association of
Indonesian Fishing Companies (Gappindo), saying it would lead the
local fishing industry to bankruptcy.
But Harry said Indonesia needed to gradually eliminate the
fuel subsidy in anticipation of the ASEAN Free Trade Zone Area
(AFTA), which comes into effect in 2003.
"There will be no subsidy once our market is open," he said.
He further said that Pertamina would appoint an independent
team of surveyors to verify the exact fuel demand for industry.
"I expect them to start working on May 15," he said.
Pertamina has said that an oversupply of fuel might have
boosted fuel smuggling activities during the past few months.
Harry said the independent surveyors would work for an
indefinite period to determine how much fuel Pertamina should
distribute to the industrial market.
"So buying fuel from us will be a little bit tight next time,"
he said. (bkm)