Sigit Pramono named BNI president in major reshuffle
Rendi A. Witular and Abdul Kholik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Shareholders of troubled state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) decided on Monday to fire seven of the bank's nine-member board of directors, and appointed Sigit Pramono as new president of the country's second-largest bank in terms of assets.
The move, taken during an extraordinary shareholders meeting, followed the recent revelation of a high-profile lending fraud involving Rp 1.7 trillion (US$200 million).
Sigit, 45, is currently the president of publicly listed Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII), the country's fourth-largest bank in terms of assets, which has recently been acquired by Kookmin Bank of South Korea and Temasek Holdings Pte. of Singapore.
Sigit, who succeeds outgoing president Saifuddien Hasan, was reported to have strong support from State Minister of State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi. The government controls a 99 percent stake in BNI, with the remaining shares in the hands of public investors.
During the meeting, shareholders also agreed to maintain Arwin Rasyid as BNI vice president and I. Supomo as director. Arwin was also one of the leading candidates for the top position at the bank.
Other newly appointed directors include three BNI career officials: Fero Poerbonegoro, Achmad Baiquni and Suroto Muhadji; three Bank Mandiri officials: Bien Soebiantoro, Kemal Ranadireksa and Tjahjana Tjakrawinata and one central bank official: Achil Ridwan Djajadiningrat.
BNI shareholders, however, have decided to maintain the bank's current commissioners, although many analysts and legislators previously urged the government to dismiss them as well due to failure in effectively supervising the bank.
In order to help boost supervision, however, shareholders appointed additional commissioners including Drajad Hari Wibowo (economist), Ahyar Ilyas (former central bank deputy governor), and Yap Tjay Soen.
Shares in BNI were unchanged on Monday at Rp 100 per share on the Jakarta Stock Exchange.
During the meeting, BNI shareholders also approved the bank's plan to launch a secondary offering of its shares to the public next year and to conduct a quasi-reorganization based on the June 30, 2003, financial report.
Quasi-reorganization is accounting engineering aimed at erasing a company's accumulated losses by reevaluating its assets based on present value, so that it can pay dividend. BNI had accumulated losses of Rp 58.9 trillion as of the first semester of this year.
Meanwhile, the National Police said that Maria Pauline Lumowa, the main suspect in the BNI fraud, had refused to come to Jakarta for questioning, and that she was only willing to be questioned in Singapore.
Deputy chief of the public relations division Brig. Gen. Soenarko said the refusal was because she felt more secure in Singapore than in Indonesia.
However, he said the police would not send its officials to Singapore because such a move was not the correct procedure.