Minister names new Bapepam, IBRA chiefs
Minister names new Bapepam, IBRA chiefs
JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Finance replaced eight top-
ranking officials yesterday, including the chairman of the
Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) and the head of the
Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam).
New IBRA chairman is Glenn M.S. Yusuf, former director general
of financial institutions, who replaces Iwan R. Prawiranata. The
latter will now serve only as a director at the central bank.
Bapepam is now led by Jusuf Anwar, former head of the
education and training center (BPLK) at the Ministry of Finance.
Jusuf replaces I Putu Gede Ary Suta, who was transferred as an
expert to the minister of finance.
Other new senior officials are director general of excise and
duty Martiono Hadianto, director general of financial
institutions Susiati B. Hirawan, head of the monetary and
financial analysis body Noor Fuad, head of BPLK Arie Soelendro
and state revenue expert Suhadi Hadiwijoyo.
Minister of Finance Bambang Subianto also reshuffled 35
second-echelon officials at the finance ministry.
He said the measure was needed to deal with the country's
economic crisis, including to speed up the bank restructuring
process, maintain state revenues at a "good level" and implement
the new law on nontax income.
"These are difficult tasks considering the severe condition of
the economy," he said.
To help in accelerating the bank restructuring process, he
said IBRA's new chairman would no longer be responsible for two
jobs as in the past, in which the former chairman also served as
a director at Bank Indonesia.
He stressed the government would maintain the existence of
IBRA, whose sole duty is to restore the country's troubled banks.
Many earlier criticized IBRA's overlapping role with the
central bank, and urged the agency's operation to be terminated.
IBRA's role would be to find ways to revive the ailing banks
both those under its supervision or those outside the agency,
Bambang said.
"Through IBRA, the stronger banks are expected to be able to
help the weaker ones." He added that one of the ways was for
stronger institutions to assume the bad assets of troubled banks.
He explained that due diligence of internationally accepted
standards was being implemented to gauge the real position of all
domestic banks, including their loan loss provision level and
capital condition.
The government last week eased the bank capital requirements,
in which the minimum capital adequacy ratio (CAR) requirement was
halved to 4 percent from the earlier target of 8 percent to be
fulfilled by the end of this year.
"We're just trying to be realistic. Amid the current economic
condition, most of our banks are finding difficulty in meeting
the previously high CAR level," he said, referring to criticism
of the decision to lower the CAR requirements.
CAR requirements to be fulfilled by the end of 1999 and 2000
were lowered to 8 percent and 10 percent respectively. (rei)