Sempati Air delays appointment of new chief

JAKARTA (JP): PT Sempati Air, one of the country's six scheduled air carriers, has delayed its plan to appoint a new president to replace the outgoing top executive, Santun Nainggolan.

Sempati spokeswoman Rima Novianti said a shareholders' meeting, which should have been held yesterday to appoint a new president, was canceled because several commissioners did not show up.

"Another meeting has been rescheduled for Monday," she said.

Sempati is owned by the Humpuss Group of Hutomo (Tommy) Mandala Putra, President Soeharto's youngest son (15 percent), Armed Forces holding company PT Tri Usaha Bhakti (25 percent), Malaysian-Indonesian joint venture Asean Aviation Inc. (40 percent) and timber tycoon Muhammad (Bob) Hasan, one of the President's closest friends (20 percent).

Humpuss spokeswoman, Asriningati S., said some Sempati commissioners were unable to attend yesterday.

"Just tell reporters that today's (yesterday's) meeting has been delayed for a week," Tommy said as quoted by Asriningati.

She said it was not clear who was unable to attend the meeting yesterday.

Nainggolan said over the weekend he would resign from Sempati for personal reasons. The 44-year-old Nainggolan was appointed president last December to replace Hasan M. Soedjono.

"This is for personal reasons and there's no dismissal," Nainggolan said, adding he did not have any background in the aviation industry which might have caused unsuccessful teamwork.

Nainggolan, whose resignation became effective yesterday, has to continue his post until next Monday.

Aviation sources said president of Mandala Airlines, Soebagijo, would likely replace Nainggolan, while Fauzi Ma'ruf would replace Sempati's financial director, I Cenik Ardana.

Mandala is also partly owned by Nusamba and two other foundations related with the Armed Forces. Ma'ruf is an executive of the pulp and paper producer PT Kiani Kertas owned by Bob Hasan. (icn)