JP/4/bakrie
Aburizal slammed over Bank Mandiri comment
The Jakarta Post Jakarta
Anticorruption activists have lashed out at chief economics minister Aburizal Bakrie on Sunday for making a statement that apparently defended state-owned Bank Mandiri that is currently facing a graft probe over some bad loans.
They said the statement by the coordinating minister for the economy could dampen the government's effort to fight corruption, with Indonesia ranked as one of the most corrupt nations on earth.
On Thursday, Aburizal said that procedural irregularities by Bank Mandiri -- the country's largest bank in terms of assets -- in providing loans worth up to Rp 12 trillion (US$1.26 billion) that later had to be booked as bad debts, could not be interpreted as corruption.
"Irregularities don't necessarily mean corruption. It's an old concept and state officials should change that. The important thing is that we should be looking at the end results," he said.
Responding to the statement, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) deputy chairman Lucky Djani said it was improper for the chief economics minister to make such a statement amid the ongoing investigation into alleged corruption at the bank.
"Irregularities, which are deliberately created so that someone makes a profit, are another form of corruption, just like what happened in the BNI (Bank Negara Indonesia) graft scam because there was no supervision or warning systems," Lucky argued.
He said that instead of issuing such a statement, Aburizal as a high-ranking government official should have encouraged the Attorney General's Office (AGO) to find those responsible for the non-performing loans, especially as Bank Mandiri is a publicly listed company.
Similarly, another anticorruption activist Bambang Widjojanto said Aburizal's comment could attenuate the government's national drive against corruption.
"We should quietly wait for the final results of the investigation, then we can start making statements," he said.
In the first stage of their investigation, AGO prosecutors were focusing on alleged irregularities by Bank Mandiri in channeling more than Rp 1 trillion in loans to four companies -- TV broadcaster PT Lativi Media Karya, PT Citra Graha Nusantara/Tahta Medan, PT Arutmin and PT Siak Zamrud Pusaka.
Several debtors have already been declared suspects in the case.
Lucky also criticized other high-ranking government officials for lacking a sense of awareness when it comes to bank scams, graft or any other cases.
"We should compare this with other countries, where if there is a single case of embezzlement, they would investigate it intensively without asking whether it is merely an 'irregularity' or corruption," he said.
"Besides, if it is only an irregularity, how could it involve so much money? The mechanism of giving loans should be fixed as well," Lucky said.
This contradicts another of Aburizal's statements that losses during the extending of loans by banks were common and that if lending was profitable then procedures should be put to one side.
Aburizal Bakrie once controlled the Bakrie Group, his family business, before becoming a minister. Last year's audit of publicly listed PT Bakrie & Brothers showed that its subsidiary PT Bakrie Telecom secured a long-term loan worth Rp 548.2 billion from Bank Mandiri.
However, PT Bakrie Telecom on Sunday denied the report, saying the loan obtained in April 2003 was not problematic.
"Currently, the amount of Bakrie Telecom's debt with Bank Mandiri has decreased to Rp 515.8 billion because in 2004 we paid the principle of the loan worth Rp 32.7 billion," the company's senior manager for corporate communications, Lalu Mara Satria, said in a press statement.
"So, it was not true that the debt was restructured through a 'haircut' (debt write-off) agreed to by the bank," he added.