JP/6/Fire/0

JP/6/Fire/0

Still no answers in suspicious factory blaze

JAKARTA (JP): The National Police Headquarters is still in the
dark over the exact cause of a huge fire which destroyed a
television factory in Tangerang late last month due to a lack of
material evidence.

"We need more time to determine the cause of the blaze," Maj.
Eddy T.G., who leads a team from the National Police forensic
laboratory, told The Jakarta Post yesterday. "We've come to the
scene four times and collected as much material evidence as we
could, but so far we haven't found anything which would determine
the cause of the blaze at the firm."

While police are still in the dark about the fire that razed
the 14,000-square-meter PT Textronic Electronics Permai (TPE)
factory complex in Tangerang on March 25, others have put forth
their own conclusions.

Employees at the factory who wished to remain anonymous, have
said that the fire is a textbook case of insurance fraud arson.

In a written report to the executives of the company, security
guards of the factory said that a group of people tried
unsuccessfully to burn the plant on March 20 -- five days before
the actual fire occurred and that they reported the situation to
management at that point. Management's response to incident was
to do nothing.

Security reports also said that on March 11 a group, led by
Grundig employee Eddy Yuli, came to the factory with nine trucks
to remove nearly 1000 television sets without the proper
documentation.

The factory was the only production center of the publicly-
listed firm, which produced and assembled television sets and
electronic goods bearing brand names such as Grundig, Paladium,
Okano and SEG.

Although no fatalities were reported, the three-hour-long
blaze, which started around 4 a.m. on Friday of March 25
destroyed many machines in the factory.

"There were many high-tech machines inside the plant which
cost millions of rupiahs each," said Tony Demos, the company's
manager for personnel and general affairs. He gave no indication
if the 'machines' inside the plant was assembly equipment or if
some of the factory's inventory had been replaced.

He did ad that the incident has been reported to the Capital
Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam).

The company's share price on the Jakarta Stock Exchange
Friday, the last of the weekly trading, remained unchanged at Rp
3,700 (US$1.73), although no transactions have been recorded
since the incident.

The company is a subsidiary of the Asia Permai Group, a widely
diversified business group formerly owned by business tycoon H.
Mohamad Amid, who reportedly has sold the plant to PT Gading
Mandala Utama, a subsidiary of the widely-diversified Humpuss
group.

Meanwhile, executives of PT Grundig International Indonesia
(GII), which had its products assembled at the factory of PT
Textronic Electronics Permai, said that their firm will set up
their own factory later this year. (bsr)