New Zealander fights for Rp 64 million

New Zealander fights for Rp 64 million

JAKARTA (JP): An expatriate from New Zealand is in dispute
with the company he used to work for over a sum of money and the
right to occupy a rented house in the elite Menteng area of
Central Jakarta.

The local property company, PT Arta Buana Sakti, reportedly
sent security guards and a number of uniformed people to evict
Christopher F.A. Mason from the house on Jl. Teluk Betung on
Friday.

On Saturday, a number of executives and security personnel,
along with a lawyer representing the company, went to the house
to tell the firm's former consultant to leave it.

This reportedly resulted in a protracted and heated argument.

Mason told The Jakarta Post that a group of uniformed security
guards and military men carrying guns broke into the house on
Friday afternoon, stealing keys and the electric meter.

Mason said on Saturday that the company, which he claims owes
him Rp 64 million (US$28,960), wants to take over the house in
order to earn cash by leasing it to another person.

PT Arta Buana Sakti is a subsidiary of Harapan Group, which
has BHS Bank, Sake Bank and Guna Bank. The business group's
property development firm is BHS Land, of which Mason was the
general manager for over one year in 1993 and 1994.

Mason said the owner of Harapan Group is Hendra Rahardja, the
older brother of Eddy Tansil, who is now in jail for swindling
Bapindo bank out of Rp 1.3 trillion.

Mason claims that the company has refused to pay its Rp 64
million residual debt in relation to a breach of the terms of a
contract signed by him and Mrs. Cheong Swee Kheng, Rahardja's
second wife.

"They only gave me promises, promises," he said.

Based on legal letters signed by him and the firm's executive,
he resigned from the firm on Oct. 28 last year and was paid Rp
27.72 million by the company for expenses that he claimed.

Mason also agreed to leave the house on Nov. 1.

"But, he didn't want to leave the house until today and didn't
even want to allow us to come inside the house to protect our
property that we temporarily put there," Jhon Siswanto from the
Legal Department of the Harapan Group told the Post.

"We have been patient enough to allow him stay on our property
for about four months," added the group's lawyer Happy SP
Sihombing.

But Mason said this is untrue because they "broke the rule" on
the next day after the signing of the letters.

Moreover, Mason said, he paid the rent of $2,000 per month by
himself. The company, which has contracted the house until June
this year, has only paid for part of the period, he said.

"It's not money that I'm talking about, but the way they asked
me to leave this house," he said. (bsr)