Semen Padang still owned by govt: Official

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Office of the State Minister for State Owned Enterprises secretary Bacelius Ruru on Thursday condemned the West Sumatra administration for its unilateral action in claiming ownership over cement producer PT Semen Padang.

"This takeover (of the company) cannot happen because legally Semen Padang is still owned by the central government," he told reporters here.

Bacelius was responding to reports that a decree had earlier been issued by the West Sumatra administration claiming that Semen Padang, a subsidiary of state-owned PT Semen Gresik, was owned by the people of West Sumatra.

Protests against foreign ownership of Semen Padang and another Semen Gresik unit, PT Semen Tonasa in South Sulawesi, have long been disrupting the government's efforts to sell a majority stake in the state-owned company to Mexican-based cement giant Cemex SA de CV. Cemex already owns a 25 percent stake in Semen Gresik.

The government had planned to sell 51 percent of Semen Gresik, which would bring in around US$520 million, or some 80 percent of the government's privatization target of Rp 6.5 trillion (about $634 million) this year.

So far, the privatization program has yielded nothing and the government has come under pressure to start raising proceeds to help plug the budget deficit.

But the protests have caused the initial Oct. 26 deadline for the sale to be extended until Dec. 14 to give time for the government to evaluate the impact of the sale.

Bacelius said that the West Sumatra administration should let the government's special privatization team, established by President Megawati Soekarnoputri, review the matter to achieve the most equitable solution.

"Because a (one-sided) takeover will only give rise to legal complications," he said, explaining that these complications would arise because the publicly-listed Semen Gresik was owned not only by the government, but also private investors.

Bacelius said that the West Sumatra administration could rest assured that its grievances would be taken into consideration.

Separately, PT Cemex Indonesia president Francisco Noriega said that it was up to the shareholders to make a statement and that it was crucial that the government, as the major shareholder, made an official statement.

"I think it is the government that has to give an opinion at this time," he said.