IBRA to be audited soon, says Bambang
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Finance Bambang Sudibyo said on Monday the government would appoint an independent auditor to audit the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) in January in a bid to improve transparency.
The minister said the audit was also aimed at detecting "problems" at IBRA and to boost the agency's performance.
"We will appoint an independent auditor for this purpose," he told House Commission IX on financial and development planning affairs at a hearing session.
He said the audit would be financed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but disclosed no further details.
Bambang acknowledged that IBRA had been slow in restructuring the country's banking sector as well as in recovering the industry's bad assets.
He said the agency was facing particularly severe difficulties in dealing with large bad debtors banks, which are mostly controlled by well-connected businessmen.
"The problem faced by IBRA is immense, not equal to the number of its staff members. But in addition to that, the competency of its staff members is questionable," Bambang said.
IBRA, a unit of the finance ministry, was launched early last year, with a mission to help the government restructure the country's battered banking sector and to raise funding to finance the program.
The agency currently controls some Rp 600 trillion worth of various bank assets, including some Rp 230 trillion in the form of non-performing bank loans (NPLs).
These powers have led IBRA to become the country's largest and most powerful economic vehicle.
But there has been increasing concern that IBRA has been slow in recovering the NPLs, and legislators have also questioned the transparency of IBRA in dealing with the bad debtors.
The outbreak of the high-profile Bank Bali scandal has also put IBRA's credibility at stake.
The Bank Bali scandal centers around the illegal transfer of some US$80 million from the bank to a company linked to several influential people close to former president B.J. Habibie.
Bambang said that in the near future there would be more steps taken to improve transparency at IBRA.
He said the lack of transparency had partly contributed to IBRA's slowness.
He said that with greater transparency, IBRA would gain the public's support to expedite its programs, including ways of dealing with the noncooperative bad bank debtors.
"Public control can become a type of pressure for IBRA to work harder and faster," Bambang said.
Early last month, Bambang was reported to be planning to replace IBRA chairman Glenn S. Yusuf. The rumor was quashed by senior economic ministers.
While the top echelon of the Finance Ministry accompanied Bambang at Monday's hearing session, Glenn was not present.
Bambang also informed legislators of the government's plans to revise the membership of the Financial Sector Action Committee (FSAC), which groups several senior economic ministers and Bank Indonesia's Governor.
The committee has a mission to oversee the country's banking sector reform.
Bambang said that since Bank Indonesia had become an independent central bank, its Governor would no longer be a member of the FSAC, and would be replaced by the attorney general.
He said Bank Indonesia would only be an advisor to the FSAC.
Chairman of the Independent Review Committee Mar'ie Muhammad recently criticized the FSAC for failing to do its job properly. He said the committee's failings partly contributed to the various scandals hitting the country's banking sector. (rei)