Govt told to probe criminal aspects of debt-ridden firms
Govt told to probe criminal aspects of debt-ridden firms
JAKARTA (JP): Economist Kwik Kian Gie criticized the
government's handling of debt-ridden companies, saying it has
failed to tackle the criminal aspects.
He criticized the government's handling of the Kanindo textile
group, in which it's only apparent concern is with the group's
operational stability, while the possible criminal aspects have
been left untouched.
"I think it's legitimate for the people to ask why the
government does not want to open up the criminal aspects of
Kanindo's case, like what has happened with the Golden Key
Group," Kwik remarked.
Kanindo Success Textile, a subsidiary of the Kanindo Group, is
Rp 500 billion (US$238 million) in debt to two state-own banks,
Bank Bumi Daya (BBD) and Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo).
The government has formally appointed the Federation of
Indonesian Batik Cooperatives (GKBI) to take over the management
of Kanindo for a three-year period. The new management is
assigned to improve its liquidity to enable it to settle its
debts.
However, there has been no government investigation into how
Robby Tjahjadi, the owner of Kanindo Group, received such a huge
amount of credits from the two state banks to finance his
business in the first place, Kwik said.
Collusion
"Is there evidence of collusion, corruption, mark-up of
assets, letters of recommendation from politically strong men
that smoothed the disbursement of the credits?" Kwik asked.
Robby is reportedly still at large abroad. "I think Robby will
not come back here since he has enough cash to live abroad," Kwik
said.
Kwik reminded that if the handling of debt-ridden companies
does not touch on the criminal aspects, other debt-ridden
companies might follow the same scenario because at least 32
companies also have debt problems, including Golden Key and
Kanindo.
Kwik questioned the government's recent move to tackle bad-
debt problems at state-banks by asking the owners of debt-ridden
companies to make new proposals.
The banks then approved a number of proposals, asking that the
interest of the debts be written off for a certain period of
time, he said.
He suggested that the government take tougher actions against
the debt-ridden companies, or else risk losing more money because
the companies got the credits from state banks.
"If I may make a suggestion, the government should bring the
owners of debt-ridden companies to court to unveil the way they
got the credits and who is behind them," Kwik said.(rid)