ICW reveals massive graft at PTPN XIII

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) reported on Tuesday losses of more than Rp 234 billion (US$29 million) in three state-related companies because of alleged corruption.

Teten Masduki, an executive of the anticorruption board, said the alleged corruption involved PT Perkebunan Nusantara XIII (PTPN XIII), the Pelaihari sugar mill and the Jababeka train project.

He charged that the corruption losses in PTPN XIII, which manages oil palm plantations in West and South Kalimantan alone amounted to Rp 106.7 billion.

According to the ICW findings, the corruption in PTPN XIII occurred in the sales of crude palm oil and oil palm kernel during the period between Jan. 1, 1997 and July 31 of this year, and on the sales of refined bleached deodorized olein (RBD olein) between May and July this year.

"PTPN XII's officials allegedly marked down the price of the company's CPO, oil palm kernel and olein during that period. They sold the commodities at the reference prices set by the KPB (the state joint marketing office for agriculture products) but they reported that the commodities were sold at lower prices," Teten said.

ICW's secretary Abdullah Kamil said that officials of PTPN XIII had manipulated their financial reports to hide the alleged corruption.

"The commodities were sold for at least 25 percent higher than the prices they reported," Kamil explained.

In addition to the alleged corruption on the sales of CPO and its derivatives, ICW also reported alleged collusion practices in the procurement of the plantation company's heavy equipment, which might have inflicted losses of Rp 2.8 billion to the government, he said.

Teten also said that ICW suspected state surveyor PT Sucofindo had intentionally undervalued the assets of Pelaihari sugar mill before the company was partially sold to PT Sylvatech Indonesia and PT Centramas Aneka Niaga.

He said that Sucofindo had marked down the assets of the sugarmill to allow the two companies to buy its shares for below the market price.

PT Sylvatech and Centramas bought 50 percent and 10 percent stake in the sugar producer respectively from PTPN XIII.

He said that the asset manipulation could have inflicted losses of about Rp 113 billion on the government.

ICW's ethics board member Bambang Widjojanto said that the alleged collusive practices between the project head and the tendering committee of Jababeka's train project might also cause losses of at least Rp 11 billion to the government.

Bambang said that the contractor of the train project, the Tekken-Marubeni-Wika (TMW) consortium of Japan won its contract due to alleged collusion with the committee.

"The collusion caused losses to government and also endangered public safety as the contractor did not use good quality raw materials for the project and was not capable to do its job," he said.

Under the contract, TMW was to build an operations control system for electric trains linking Jakarta, Bogor and Bekasi.

Teten said that the results of ICW's investigations would be sent to the Attorney General's Office and related ministries.

"We urge the government to continue our investigations and take the people who misused their powers to court."

But he expressed skepticism over the government's political will to investigate corruption involving high-ranking officials, saying that the government's move to probe corruption was just a half-hearted effort designed merely to boost its popularity.

He said honest investigations into the corruption allegations might backfire on many of incumbent government officials because they had also abused their powers to gain wealth in the past.

"Thus far, all the work of Attorney General Andi Muhammad Ghalib has only protected the interests of former president Soeharto. We cannot expect much from him," Teten said.

Teten urged the public not to hesitate in sending reports on alleged corruption, collusion and nepotism practices to the group. (gis)