Govt urged to take action to help BNI regain assets

Govt urged to take action to help BNI regain assets

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta

Government institutions need to make a concerted effort to
recover state bank BNI's Rp 1.3 billion (US$125 billion) in
assets, which remain in the hands of those who stole the money.

BNI legal consultant Pradjoto said almost 70 percent of the
bank's embezzled assets had been placed in overseas banks,
including in Singapore and the U.S., while the remainder was
scattered in Indonesian banks.

"We are talking about a huge amount of state money here. The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General's Office, the
courts and the National Police must take immediate action
together to retrieve BNI's assets," Pradjoto told The Jakarta
Post.

He was commenting on the failure of the police and prosecutors
to hand over a single rupiah to the state since police revealed
the embezzlement six months ago.

Pradjoto said Indonesia could claim the assets placed abroad
by asking the governments of the countries where the money was
deposited to freeze the accounts and return the money to
Indonesia.

"There was a precedent when concerted efforts succeeded in
retrieving state money in Hendra Rahardja's case. The government
of Australia froze his account and later returned his money to
the Indonesian government," he said.

Hendra, who died of kidney cancer in 2003, was sentenced to
life imprisonment in absentia in March 2002 for corruption
involving Rp 1.95 trillion (US$200 million based on 1998 exchange
rates) of taxpayers' money distributed to two of his banks under
the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance program during the 1998
economic crisis.

The Indonesian government managed to recover only A$642,000
(Rp 4.17 billion) of the money.

"I think the government can reclaim the money as long as there
is a court verdict that it was earned through corruption. The
foreign countries concerned wouldn't want to be accused of
holding illegal money," said Pradjoto.

On Thursday BNI president director Sigit Pramono announced
that not a single asset had been submitted to BNI after more than
six months of legal processing.

It said that of Rp 1.7 trillion initially embezzled, BNI had
managed to recover Rp 400 billion through its own efforts.

"As of now, the remaining assets have not changed hands
because the suspects have many reasons to avoid doing that. I am
suspicious that these funds are being used to bribe officials to
delay the case, or for other purposes," said Pradjoto.

Several businesspeople from the Gramarindo and Petindo Groups
were accused of obtaining money through deception from the
second-largest bank in the country in 2003 by using letters of
credit (L/Cs) from correspondent banks in Congo and Kenya to
withdraw money from BNI's Kebayoran Baru branch.

The L/Cs turned out to be fake, causing the state bank to
suffer losses of Rp 1.7 trillion. Police have named 17 suspects
from BNI, Gramarindo and Petindo. Seven are being tried in the
South Jakarta court. However, the main suspect, Maria Pauline
Lumowa, managed to escape the country.

Pradjoto dismissed allegations that BNI's demand was
politically motivated because it came in the wake of campaigning
for the presidential election.

"It's just a coincidence that the demand for assets has been
raised during the election process," said Pradjoto.