PwC affirms authenticity of report

JAKARTA (JP): PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) managing partner Kemal Stamboel affirmed on Friday the authenticity of the copy of its audit of the Bank Bali scandal now in the hands of the House of Representatives.

However, Kemal said there were some apparent discrepancies in the circulated report at the House due to technical problems during photocopying.

He noted that the top of page 49 and the bottom of page 50 were truncated, while pages 54 and 120 were missing.

Separately, the head of the information department at the House's Secretariat, Soebandrio, said on Friday his office had accidentally failed to photocopy page 54 of the report.

"There was a photocopying error... We apologize for this," he said.

When the missing page initially was discovered, there was suspicion it had been purposely omitted to cover up certain names or events.

Soebandrio said the missing page contained information on Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency deputy chairman Pande Lubis' discussions with 11 banks on the issue of fund disbursement.

The page also gives a chronological description of a cession agreement and indicates PwC contacted those involved in the agreement -- Djoko S. Tjandra and Setya Novanto, he said.

Copies

Kemal was called to meet with House commissions II and IX, which are investigating the Bank Bali scandal, after rumors arose that fictitious copies of the audit were being circulated.

The scandal revolves around a Rp 546 billion transfer from Bank Bali to PT Era Giat Prima for services rendered in recouping about Rp 904 billion in loans owed to Bank Bali by closed banks.

Bank Bali should not have employed the services of the company because the claims were guaranteed by the government.

Much speculation has focused on the possibility that some of the money in the scandal was used to bankroll B.J. Habibie's presidential bid.

"We only printed four copies (of the audit), each with different codes," Kemal told the commissions, adding that this made it easy to identify the copies.

Three copies were presented to the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), which gave one copy to the National Police and another to the House. The fourth copy remains with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The copy given to the House is said to be the second copy presented to BPK.

During the meeting chaired by Sukowaluyo Mintorahardjo, Kemal recounted some of the difficulties the company faced during its audit.

"The main obstacle we faced was the time limit of three weeks," he said.

While stressing the company was not subject to political pressure, he said the auditors found it difficult to interview a number of people possibly connected to the scandal and to look into several bank accounts.

Kemal said the auditors encountered some resistance from Bank Indonesia when they wished to open a number of bank accounts.

"They said that our investigation was beyond our term of reference given by BPK, and it would violate the bank secrecy policy", he said. (02)