SCB employees booted from Bank Bali's headquarters

JAKARTA (JP): In a sign of the escalating tension between Bank Bali staff and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) employees, staff in charge of managing Bank Bali were ejected on Thursday from the bank's headquarters.

The eviction, which took place at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, was the most serious action by the protesting Bank Bali staff against SCB since the U.K.-based bank was given the authority by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) to manage the former late in July.

"We'll kick them out again if they dare to come in tomorrow," said one angry Bank Bali protester.

After staging a demonstration at noon, some Bank Bali staff went to SCB staff offices on the 9th, 17th and 23rd floors of the bank headquarters and forced them to leave the building.

SCB has 60 Jakarta staff, including 48 expatriates.

"We want SCB out of Bank Bali," said Bank Bali manager Eddy Kurniawan.

"They come to us like a colonialist. They're very arrogant English people," he said.

Eddy said the SCB team had failed to manage Bank Bali during the three month period. He said this was reflected by the increase in the Bank Bali recapitalization cost, from an earlier estimate of Rp 2.6 trillion to Rp 4.3 trillion.

Eddy also accused the SCB of conspiring with IBRA to take over Bank Bali and eject the bank's former owner, the Rudy Ramli family.

IBRA signed an investment agreement with SCB in July, in which the latter would buy a 20 percent stake in Bank Bali to help finance the publicly listed bank's recapitalization program.

But SCB's plan to take a stake in Bank Bali have proved far from easy.

At the end of October, protesting Bank Bali staff members signed a motion of no-confidence in the SCB team.

The Thursday demonstration was made after SCB decided on Wednesday to fire one Bank Bali staff member and suspended 47 other staff on grounds that they were involved in arranging a campaign of noncooperation with SCB.

IBRA said on Thursday in a statement that it approved SCB's decision.

But IBRA chairman Glenn S. Yusuf warned SCB to cooperate with Bank Bali staff and to act wisely in relation to the changing situation and conditions at Bank Bali.

"Incompetent members of the (SCB) management team must be replaced," Glenn said.

A foreign banker in Jakarta said he feared that the escalating tension between SCB and Bank Bali staff had the potential to deal a serious blow to the country's bank restructuring program which needed the role of foreign banks to ensure its success.

"This kind of development would discourage foreign investors to enter into the country's banking industry," the banker said.

"I'm quite surprised though on how the Bank Bali staff remain loyal to Rudy Ramli," he said, referring to the former owner and president of Bank Bali, who has now become a defendant in the high-profile Bank Bali scandal.

Rudy is currently in hospital and is said to be being treated for depression.

Eddy denied charges that staff opposition to SCB was in order to defend Rudy.

He also said Bank Bali staff did not reject foreign investors or the government bank recapitalization program.

"We support the government program. We welcome the entry of foreign investors because we realize their important (financing) role. But we despise arrogant investors like SCB," Eddy said. (rei/05)