Government to evaluate joint telecoms projects
JAKARTA (JP): The government will evaluate early next year five private joint ventures holding 15-year joint operation contracts to install and manage telecommunications networks in five operational regions of the country.
"I agree with House members that evaluation of the joint operation projects is necessary. The evaluation will begin next January after the projects go for a one-year period," Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave said yesterday at a hearing with House of Representatives Commission V for transportation, public works, tourism and telecommunications.
A number of suggestions flowed in yesterday concerning the privatization of telecommunications networks in Sumatra, Kalimantan, West and Central Java and the country's eastern region covering Sulawesi, Maluku, Irian Jaya and Nusa Tenggara.
Budi Haryanto of the ruling Golkar political organization suggested that the government should conduct assessments on the private firms' plans to transfer both technologies and managerial skills to the state-owned PT Telkom, which already handed over its networks in the contract areas.
Another commission member, Achmad Saad Harjono of Golkar, said that during his recent visits to several provinces, he learned that the private firms applied different methods in handling their projects.
"It will be better if the government sets a kind of general guidelines for the private firms in conducting their projects," he said.
Telkom signed the joint operation contracts last October with five joint ventures, which will install 2.2 million telephone lines and operate them along with the existing lines.
The projects, effective as of January this year, are part of the government's program to install five million telephone lines within the current Sixth Five-Year Development Plan period, which will end in March 1999.
The five private joint ventures include PT Pramindo Ikat Nusantara, which is responsible to install some 500,000 new telephone lines in Sumatra; PT Aria West International, responsible for 500,000 lines in West Java and PT Mitra Global Telekomunikasi Indonesia, responsible for 400,000 lines in Central Java.
The other two companies are PT Daya Mitra, which will install 237,000 lines in Kalimantan and PT Bukaka Singtel, which will install 403,000 lines in the eastern region.
Each of the joint ventures is responsible for operating and managing telephone lines in its contract area for 15 years, until 2010. In addition, each of them have been given three years, until 1999, to install the numbers of new telephone lines specified in their contracts.
Joop said yesterday that even though the planned evaluation will be set for next year, he believed the joint operation projects had run well so far.
"Many developed countries were surprised when Indonesia introduced the joint operation projects, involving overseas world-class telecommunications operators," he said.
"I also believe that the foreign operators involved in this projects have their own interests to become superstars."
He said, for instance, Pramindo Ikat, which is partly owned by France Cable et Radio, a subsidiary of France Telecom, will and must perform its project in Sumatra properly.
"France Telecom will float part of its shares in Paris early next year. Its share price will be affected if the company's project in Sumatra doesn't run well."
Besides, to finance the development of its telecommunications project in Sumatra, Pramindo Ikat has secured US$400 million in a syndicated loan facility pledged by 31 financial institutions. "This is an example to show that the company has the commitment in carrying out its project," Joop said. (icn)