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)