Martiono named Pertamina's new chief commissioner
Leony Aurora and Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has decided to install Martiono Hadianto as the new chief commissioner of state oil and gas company PT Pertamina and replace two other board members.
"I signed the resolution taken in the shareholders' meeting appointing Martiono Hadianto last night," State Minister for State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Sugiharto said on Tuesday.
Martiono, who headed Pertamina for fourteen months after he was elected in December 1998, will replace former state minister for SOEs Laksamana Sukardi, a top politician from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) who resigned from the board last year.
Muhammad Abduh, a former deputy for finance of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), has come in to take Syafruddin Tumenggung's place and Umar Said, once the secretary- general of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, replaces the former director general for budgetary affairs at the Ministry of Finance Ansyari Ritonga.
Roes Aryawijaya and Iin Arifin Takhyan will remain on the board of commissioners.
"I view the reshuffle as necessary to revitalize Pertamina," said Sugiharto.
He expected the new board of commissioners to better supervise the oil and gas giant, and promised to work together to solve the serious problems clouding the company, including the prolonged disputes with ExxonMobil on the Cepu block, and with the Karaha Bodas Company (KBC).
Negotiations are currently underway between Pertamina and ExxonMobil to determine whether or not to grant a concession extension for ExxonMobil, which expires in 2010, to operate the huge oil and gas block in East Java.
Pertamina has also been engaged in a protracted legal battle since 1998 with KBC that has accused the government of breaching its contract by stopping a geothermal power project it was developing in that year.
As for the board of directors, Sugiharto said the government had no intention of doing a reshuffle, pending a review of their performance for the 2004 fiscal year.
Pertamina's president Widya Purnama has been in the top position since August last year.
Later on Tuesday, the state minister said the administration would soon replace the presidents of several troubled SOEs, including national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, ailing carrier Merpati Nusantara, and state insurance company PT Jamsostek.
"We are still reviewing the management of all state enterprises with bad KPI (key performance indexes)," said Sugiharto on the sidelines of a ceremony to hand over donations from Jamsostek for tsunami-stricken Aceh.
He declined to name possible successors to head the SOEs.
Meanwhile, Jamsostek's president Achmad Djunaidi defended his performance over the last four years, saying the company had contributed a lot to national workers since his appointment in 2000.
"Besides settling corruption cases in the company, we have showed good performance over the last four years," he said, citing the unaudited net profit of Rp 3.3 trillion (US$360.65 million) that it booked in the 2004 fiscal year.