NGOs submit their antimonopoly bill

JAKARTA (JP): Three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) handed over their version of the antimonopoly bill to the House of Representatives on Thursday.

Their draft, containing 10 chapters and 32 articles, was presented to the House's special committee preparing the long awaited antimonopoly bill.

Handing over the bill was noted consumer advocate Zaim Saidi of the Public Interest Research and Advocacy Center (PIRAC), Mukti Asikin from the Community for the Empowerment of Small- Scale Enterprises (PUPUK) and Trinirmalaningrum from the Foundation for the Empowerment of Public Participation, Initiative and Partnership (YAPPIKA).

Zaim said in the meeting chaired by Rambe Kamarul Zaman that the draft was meant as input for the House's special committee in making the antimonopoly legislation.

"Our draft is not meant to counter the bill of the special committee. It could be used as comparison," he said.

The antimonopoly bill is the first House-initiated bill since 1971. Consisting of 11 chapters and 53 articles, it was formally submitted to the House's plenary session early this month. The government has supported the bill.

Public demands to have such a bill never gained significant response from the House until recently.

Zaim called on the special commission to be receptive to all input given by the public.

Mukti said the antimonopoly law should regulate not only healthy business behavior but also market structure so that "our market in the future will no longer be monopolistic and oligopolistic".

"The definition of monopoly and oligopoly should be clearly explained in the law," he said.

He said that certain sectors and enterprises that were in the best interests of most people should be exempt from the antimonopoly law as stipulated in the 1945 Constitution.

"Those to be exempt should be enterprises which are strategic and vital to national defense and security, companies producing products needed by a majority of people and economic activities which are naturally monopolistic," he said.

Mukti said the government should set up an independent commission to enforce the law.

"The team's members should be no more than five because it would otherwise most likely be ineffective," he said.

Trinirmalaningrum said the law should introduce stiff sanctions, comprising warnings, fines and jail sentences, to prevent monopolistic practices.

The version submitted by the NGOs threatens a jail sentence between four years and 10 years, or a fine equal to between 20 percent and 40 percent of a company's assets.

Rambe of the Golkar faction hailed the draft submitted by the NGOs.

He said his commission would invite NGOs, law experts and businesspeople to discussions on the House-initiated bill after the House had finished discussing it with the government.

The bill is expected to be completed by the end of the year. (rms)