Police begin questioning BDB, Asiatic officials
Police begin questioning BDB, Asiatic officials
P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Police have started to question three top ranking officials of
recently closed banks over their alleged role in a Rp 1.2
trillion (US$139 million) transaction that exceeded the legal
lending limit allowed under banking law.
The three are former president director of Bank Dagang
Bali(BDB) I Gusti Ngurah Oka Budiana, former president director
of Bank Asiatic F.B. Surendro and former fund and marketing
director of Bank Asiatic Made Budiana. The two banks are owned by
two families related by marriage.
The police have yet to make an official statement on the
interrogation process. A high-ranking official within the
National Police, who declined to be named, said that the two
Asiatic officials would also be detained by the criminal and
investigations bureau.
The questioning of F.B. Surendro and Made Budiana started on
Monday at 11 a.m. and lasted for more than eight hours, while the
interrogation of Oka Budiana began on Friday after police
arrested him at his office in Jakarta.
First director of the economic and specific crimes division
Brig. Gen. Samuel Ismoko said that the police would charge Oka
Budiana under banking legislation.
Separately, Hotman Paris, the lawyer for Tong Muk Keung,
Asiatic's majority shareholder, said that his client had already
confirmed that he would present himself for questioning on
Wednesday.
Hotman questioned the summons, saying that as a nonoperational
official, his client was not really involved in daily,
operational decision-making.
"The police need to state more precisely the possible
involvement of my client in this case, because as a shareholder,
Mr. Tong was not an operational official, like directors or
commissioners," said Hotman.
Bank Indonesia (BI) spokesman Rusli Simanjuntak said that
nonoperational officials still had a strong influence in a case
like this.
"There are strong indications that the banks' majority
shareholders had a strong influence on the directors' decision-
making, especially in granting credit approval for affiliated
companies, which later turned out to be fictitious," he said.
Rusli said that during the interrogation, a team from BI would
assist the police investigation team with information and
supporting documentation.
Included in several of the documents submitted by BI as
evidence are the banks' accounting books, copies of transaction
documents and notes of meetings.
"The meeting we held with prosecutors and police investigation
teams determined that we have sufficient evidence to proceed with
the case," said Rusli.
According to BI, the problem centered on a number of alleged
lending frauds and legal lending limit infractions committed by
the two banks.
BDB placed funds with Asiatic in the form of interbank loans
and negotiable certificates of deposit (NCD). The funds were
later used as loan collateral by the son of BDB's majority
stakeholder, I Gusti Made Oka, who is married to a daughter of
Bank Asiatic's owner, Tong Muk Keung.
The amount in loans provided to the son of BDB's owner
exceeded the legal lending limit allowed by banking law of only
10 percent of its lending exposure. The loans accounted for 70
percent of the bank's total assets of Rp 1.7 trillion.