Laksamana not cooperative

Laksamana not cooperative

The hope that good corporate governance will ever be implemented in Indonesia faded just a little more following a statement by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) chief, S.B. Yudhono, that State Minister for State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi was not being very cooperative about the audit of state-owned enterprises.

Laksamana's office controls assets valued at Rp 860 trillion and must therefore act as the engine to push the country's economic revitalization. Unfortunately, all these big assets are nothing but big talk, as they have been siphoned off by corruption among the management of the SOEs.

BPK found irregularities that caused losses of Rp 511.6 billion to the state after auditing only 16 of the 188 SOEs. Just imagine the magnitude of the state's losses if all the SOEs are audited.

BPK has recommended to Laksamana's office that its findings of these irregularities be followed up. It is strange, therefore, that nothing seems to have been done in this respect by the Office of the State Minister for State Enterprises. Before the era of reform, Laksamana strongly lashed out against corruption. What is really going on now?

If he fails to take action to fight corruption in his office, it will show that his reform pledge was nothing but a political ploy to get into the Cabinet lineup.

-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta