NGOs submit their antimonopoly bill
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)