Government still holds Telkom's dividends

Government still holds Telkom's dividends

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications
Joop Ave said yesterday that the government still holds
dividends in the state-owned PT Telkom valued at Rp 30 billion,
earmarked to help finance a giant copper monument project in
Bali.

The telecommunications firm's dividends are safe, he told
reporters after accompanying the secretary-general of the World
Tourism Organization, Antonio E. Savignac, to a meeting with the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Wahono, yesterday.

"Just relax. Don't worry, the money is still being kept by the
government. No part of it has been spent," he said.

However Joop also said yesterday that the Rp 30 billion fund
was under his office's control because the government is still
planning to spend the fund on the project, albeit through the
state-owned PT Bali Tourist Development Corporation which owns
the company developing the project.

Chairman of the Development Finance Comptroller, Soedarjono,
said recently that using the government's dividends from Telkom
to finance the construction of a giant Garuda Wisnu Kencana
monument in Bali was not legal, even though it had been approved
by the company's shareholders.

"It is illegal for the dividends of a state-owned company to
be used by the ministry which oversees it. It violates
procedures," Soedarjono said last week.

Telkom's shareholders agreed in 1995 to allocate Rp 30 billion
($12.8 million) from the company's dividend revenues to help fund
the monument.

Garuda Wisnu is to be a 130-meter-high copper monument on a
200-hectare plot in Bukit Ungasan, Badung, in southern Bali. Its
construction is expected to be completed by the end of 1997.

The monument, to be built by the Garuda Wisnu Foundation, will
cost about Rp 80 billion.

Soedarjono argued that the approval of the company's
shareholders was not enough to legitimize the use of Telkom's
funds for purposes other than projects stipulated in the budget
plan.

He said that this abuse of state funds could not be tolerated
because it would not only affect the government's budgetary
procedures but could also widen the financial gap between
ministries.

If such practices were tolerated, they would incite jealousy,
especially at ministries which have no direct control over state
companies, he added. (icn)