Lesson from Bapindo case

From Tempo

In my childhood days my grand-father used to be mad if I happened to leave our water bucket in a hallway and not in its proper place.

He was angry because he occasionally tripped over it. But he would do the same if it was me who happened to fall over it.

I think my grand-father was the kind of person who always thought that he never did something wrong. Since I am his grand- son, I preferred to keep quiet.

Perhaps this experience has a parallel with the Bapindo credit fraud case.

I am sure that Bapindo officials had been aware about their wrong steps, but they were at lost because of the 'bucket' phenomena.

Hence it will not be a solution if punishment will only befall businessman Eddy Tansil and Bapindo executives. The government, in this case is Bank Indonesia, should reevaluate its policies.

Our politicians should keep themselves on guard against casting a political slant to the case since it will only result in the public's decline of trust in our banks or incite unnecessary tensions between groups in our society.

The case also shows that most Indonesian companies have weak management and that the credit system of Indonesian banking is discriminatory. What I mean is, if we do not have a reference letter from a top government official it is hard for us to get credit.

On the other hand, what we can learn from this case is that we need to develop small and medium scale businessmen by providing management training. We know that credit fraud plague mostly big companies.

ROHMAD HADIWIJOYO

Arlington, Virginia,

U.S.A.