Mega camp fends off bribery allegations

Mega camp fends off bribery allegations

Apriadi Gunawan and Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post/Medan/Bandung

President Megawati Soekarnoputri's campaign teams in North
Sumatra and West Java provinces have been rocked by allegations
of vote-buying via an eyebrow-raising lending scheme involving
three state-owned banks.

In North Sumatra, the provincial Election Supervisory
Committee (Panwaslu) established a team on Tuesday to investigate
the allegations that Megawati's campaigners offered low-interest,
no-collateral loans to hundreds of state plantation workers in
the province.

According to information received by Panwaslu, the president's
campaign staff recently offered employees at state-run plantation
companies here the cheap loans, which would be in breach of the
Election Law, said Choking Susilo Sakeh, the chairman of Panwaslu
in the province.

The plantation companies, including PT Perkebunan Nusantara II
and III, operate in several regencies of the province. Choking
said, while adding that hundreds of the plantation employees had
registered for the loans with a group of people that they
understood to be members of the Megawati campaign team.

The workers were instructed to take a letter given to them and
they would receive the loans from Bank Artha Graha and Bank
Mandiri in the province. The loans offered by the group range
between Rp 1 million and Rp 5 million.

Choking said that some of the people who signed up for the
loans were not employees of the companies, merely residents who
live near the plantations.

The secretary of the newly formed Nationhood Coalition
(including Golkar, PDI-P and PPP), which is campaigning on behalf
of Megawati, Effendy Naibaho, denied the allegation.

"We've had no such program. The allegation is aimed at
tarnishing Megawati's name ahead of the election," said Effendy.

It remains to be seen whether the loan maneuver was truly the
work of the Megawati campaign team or whether it was a smear
attempt against Megawati.

In West Java province meanwhile, a campaign spokesperson for
frontrunning presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
raised the issue of a nearly identical loan scheme, only that the
bank involved was state bank PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI).

Yudi Widiana Adi, a Susilo campaign worker, questioned why BRI
was suddenly involved in such unprofitable lending practices,
especially without collateral, just two weeks prior to election
day on Sept. 20.

He said there were reports of thousands of people in Sumedang,
Majalengka and Sukabumi regencies who had applied for the cheap
loans for their "small- and medium-sized enterprises", with a Rp
3 million credit ceiling, after they were told that BRI was
currently offering the scheme. In another odd twist, most of the
people who have received the loans have been led to believe that
if Megawati is elected, their debts would be written off, said
Yudi.

"We do not oppose lending to small businesses, but why has the
bank done this kind of scheme at this time, just two weeks away
from election day," wondered Yudi, while urging Panwaslu to
investigate the alleged scam.

Megawati's campaign spokesperson in West Java said he did not
see why there should be any allegations. Edi Susiyanto, one of
the provincial campaigners for Megawati, claimed that the bank
had been offering these types of cheap loans for many years.

Secretary of the provincial Panwaslu, Teten Setiawan, said
that he would investigate the report.

The alleged scandal comes at a time when banks nationwide are
promoting loans to small businesses, however, with collateral and
at standard market interest rates. Many bankers and economists
believe such loans can be relatively risk-free and produce
greater liquidity amid slow investment in the country.