KPK to investigate Monsanto bribery case
KPK to investigate Monsanto bribery case
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
JAKARTA: The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said it was
ready to investigate a bribery case involving U.S.-based Monsanto
Co., one of the world's leading developers of genetically
modified crops.
Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas, the KPK deputy chairman, said on
Saturday that the commission is scheduled to meet lawyers
representing Monsanto soon.
"They have promised to cooperate," he said, referring to a
meeting between KPK and Monsanto's lawyers last year.
According to Erry, his commission had sent official letters to
the United States Securities and Exchange Commission as well as
the Department of Justice, via the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, but
there had not yet been a response.
The commission will focus on the bribery case, which allegedly
involved a significant number of senior officials with the Office
of the State Minister for Environment and the agriculture
ministry here, he added.
Monsanto, which was charged with violating the U.S. Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act, has agreed to pay a US$1 million penalty
to settle charges of bribing Indonesian government officials.
According to the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission, the bribery case started in 1998 when Monsanto wanted
Indonesia to accept genetically-modified (GM) crops.
It hired a Jakarta-based investment consulting firm to lobby
for legislation and ministerial decrees favorable to the
development of GM crops here.
"In February of 2001, Monsanto obtained limited approval from
Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture, for farmers in South
Sulawesi, Indonesia, to grow its Bollgard Cotton, a GM crop," the
website said.
But later in the year, the environment ministry issued a
decree requiring environmental impact assessment prior to the
cultivation of the Monsanto's Bollgard Cotton in this country.
As the decree was likely to have an adverse effect on
Monsanto's business interests in Indonesia, Monsanto lobbied the
environment ministry to withdraw the decree. People from
Monsanto met with a senior environment ministry official on
several occasions.
Sometime in February 2002, an employee of the consulting firm
which represented Monsanto visited the senior official at his
home and gave him an envelope containing $50,000 in $100 bills.
Despite the cash payment, the senior official never repealed
the AMDAL requirement for Monsanto's products.
The website also disclosed that from 1997 to 2002, Monsanto
made at least $700,000 in illicit payments to at least 140
current and former Indonesian government officials and their
family members.
The largest single set of payments was for the purchase of
land and the design and construction of a house in the name of a
wife of a senior Ministry of Agriculture official, which cost
Monsanto $373,990.
Other improper payments included, among others, payments to a
senior official of Budget Allocations at the National Planning
and Development Agency (Bappenas), totaling $86,690, and payments
to other Ministry of Agriculture officials, totaling $8,100.
Officials of the South Sulawesi office of the agriculture
ministry also received approximately $29,500 from Monsanto.