Pontjo Sutowo Holds Firm at Hotel Sultan Despite Challenges Since 2006

The dispute over Hotel Sultan has entered an unprecedented new phase, in which the government intends to forcibly vacate the five-star hotel that has long been managed by PT Indobuildco. PT Indobuildco’s legal representative, Hamdan Zoelva, emphasised that the object of the dispute in the Hotel Sultan case is the land area of the Hotel Sultan complex, not the building or the hotel business operating on it. For information, PT Indobuildco is a company owned by businessman Pontjo Sutowo, which has managed Hotel Sultan in the Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) area, Central Jakarta. Hamdan explained that the Hotel Sultan building is not included in the build, operate, transfer (BOT) scheme, so it cannot be directly executed or taken over just like that. According to him, if there is an attempt to take over or execute the building, it must go through the applicable legal mechanisms and be accompanied by compensation payments. Compiled from the archives of Harian Kompas reports, this Hotel Sultan dispute case and the mutual lawsuits between the two parties have actually emerged since 2006. The management of Hotel Sultan, which stands on state land, began in 1973. Indobuildco, founded by the longest-serving Pertamina director, Ibnu Sutowo, obtained permission to build the hotel from the then Jakarta Governor, Ali Sadikin. That private company obtained HGB rights over a 13.7-hectare plot of land for a period of 30 years. Later, Ali Sadikin admitted that the permission was given to Indobuildco because he thought the company was a Pertamina subsidiary. The Central Jakarta Agrarian Subdirectorate Office (now the Central Jakarta Land Office) then issued an HGB certificate valid from 13 September 1973 to 4 March 2003. That certificate was then split into two: first, HGB No. 26 covering 57,120 square metres, and second, HGB No. 27 covering 83,666 square metres. That request was then followed up by the Head of the Jakarta Regional Office of the National Land Agency (BPN) by issuing a decision letter for extension on 13 June 2002. The extension was granted for a period of 20 years, effective from 4 March 2003. This is where the origins of the Hotel Sultan dispute began. By the State Secretariat as the landowner, the issuance of the HGB was done without recommendation from the Gelora Senayan Management Agency. This condition then became the root of the long dispute that continues to this day.