Pertamina told to take action against corruption
Pertamina told to take action against corruption
JAKARTA (JP): State oil and gas company Pertamina should take
firm action against 159 of its contractors and suppliers
allegedly involved in corruption, collusion and nepotism,
the secretary-general of the Ministry of Mines and Energy said on
Friday.
"The public has been waiting for concrete progress in the
legal resolution of these issues," Djoko Darmono told Antara.
In a related development, spokesman for Pertamina's Foreign
Contractors Management Body (BPPKA) Sidick Nitikusuma said that
the review of contracts allegedly procured through graft -- known
locally by the acronym KKN -- was nearly completed.
He said BPPKA was preparing measures to follow up on
conclusions of the review.
Measures include the revision of contracts and dismissal of
Pertamina employees found involved in KKN practices.
Djoko said the public wanted the legal measures against those
allegedly involved in KKN to be legally processed in a
transparent way.
He wondered whether rumors that Pertamina extended working
contracts with 83 of the 159 contractors implicated in graft were
true.
"However, if the companies are proven free of KKN, there is no
reason at all for not extending their contracts," he said.
Commenting on the government's plan to announce results of the
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit of Pertamina early next week,
Djoko said "the audit report should clearly define whatever
inefficiency was discovered by the auditors".
A summary of the audit report leaked in early July estimated
that Pertamina lost about US$6.1 billion from inefficiency and
corruption in 1997 and 1998. However, the auditor later revised
downward the estimated losses to $4 billion.
Djoko said PwC should explain why it decided to lower the
estimated losses and what kinds of inefficiency and corruption
inflicted such major losses on Pertamina.
"Such explanations are necessary to enable the public to get a
better understanding of the problem and the reason why the
government had to assign an independent auditor to audit
Pertamina," he added.
Minister of Development Supervision and State Administrative
Reform Hartarto was quoted by Bisnis Indonesia daily on Thursday
as saying the auditor made mistakes in its audit and corrections
were made after further discussion.
Hartarto denied the corrections were made under government
pressures but said PwC itself discovered errors in its audit.
(06)