IBRA zeros in on official over bank furor
JAKARTA (JP): The powerful Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) said on Monday it was investigating the alleged involvement of one of its deputy chairmen in the high-profile, multimillion dollar Bank Bali scam.
"It (the allegation) is still being investigated. We need more time," IBRA public relations officer Franklin Richard told reporters.
He added that the senior official remained active in the agency despite the investigation process.
Franklin was responding to accusations made by legal banking expert Pradjoto last week that a senior official at IBRA, under the initials PL, was involved in a rent seeking activity.
PL declined to meet the media.
Separately, Pradjoto said on Monday that he and his family were threatened and terrorized by certain people after he disclosed the Bank Bali scam.
"How can I make a further comment if my family is being threatened," he told reporters on Monday when asked to provide further evidence of the involvement of other government officials in the scam as he promised last week.
Pradjoto said last Friday that PL and two executives of the ruling Golkar Party colluded to force Bank Bali to provide a huge fee to help the bank recoup its interbank claims on closed-down banks.
Tempo, the weekly newsmagazine, identified PL as Pande Lubis, a deputy chairman at IBRA responsible for settling interbank claims.
"This kind of allegation, which I got from a very reliable source, has to be thoroughly investigated. Why are these rent seekers still operating amid this difficult time," Pradjoto said at a banking seminar last week.
He said it was possible that such a rent seeking activity also occurred at other banks.
Pradjoto said that Bank Bali had Rp 3 trillion (US$441.2 million) in interbank credits on three closed-down banks; Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia (BDNI), Bank Bira and Bank Umum Nasional (BUN).
The banks were closed down by the government in March, but under the government's blanket guarantee program, such interbank claims should have been covered and paid by IBRA, an agency under the finance ministry, which is now in control of various banking assets worth some Rp 600 trillion.
Pradjoto said that the scam occurred after Bank Bali failed to collect the interbank credits from IBRA.
He said that two senior officials, who were identified by Tempo as Golkar deputy treasurer Setya Novanto and businessman Djoko Chandra, a shareholder of the five-star Hotel Mulia in Jakarta, and the IBRA official came to offer assistance to Bank Bali directors to recover the Rp 3 trillion credits but with a huge fee.
Pradjoto said that on June 2, some Rp 900 billion was transferred to Bank Bali, and the next day some Rp 550 billion was withdrawn from the bank and transferred to the rent seekers as the fee payment.
He speculated that part of the money was used to finance the campaigning activities of Golkar during the recent election period.
Franklin confirmed on Monday that IBRA had transferred Rp 900 billion into Bank Bali's account in the central bank on June 1 to settle its interbank claims on Bank BDNI.
"We had conducted a verification process before we made the payment," he said.
But Franklin said that IBRA declined to repay the Bank Bali's claims on other banks because they didn't fit the terms and conditions of the joint Bank Indonesia-IBRA ruling on the blanket guarantee.
Franklin also doubted that Pande Lubis could have solely authorized the repayment of the Bank Bali interbank claims because such a decision would have to be discussed with IBRA chairman Glenn S. Yusuf and four other deputy chairmen.
The U.K.-based Standard Chartered Bank has signed an investment agreement with IBRA to buy a 20 percent stake in Bank Bali in return for its management control. (rei)