S'pore probes alleged fraud at Pertal

S'pore probes alleged fraud at Pertal

Reuters, Singapore

Singapore's white collar crime unit said on Friday it had been investigating for nearly eight months a case of possible fraud by the local trading arm of Pertamina, the state oil company of neighboring Indonesia.

"A report has been lodged on this matter and police investigations are ongoing," Lim Lu-Ern, spokesman for the Commercial Affairs Department told Reuters.

The report was lodged in late April, Lim said, without giving further details.

Pertamina, which aims to spin off most of its units in the next four years, is itself investigating a possible fraud of $8.2 million at its Singapore unit, Pertamina Energy Trading Ltd, Ariffi Nawawi, the parent firm's president director, said on Wednesday.

A Pertamina official who declined to be identified, said on Wednesday the firm had reported the case to the Singapore police, which he said were also investigating.

"Pertamina has checked the books and there are these missing funds, which we don't know the whereabouts of," the official said.

The trading unit, known as Petral, was incorporated in 1992 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Pertamina to market Indonesian crude and oil products and to buy foreign crude and products for the state-owned oil firm.

In 2002, the Petral Group moved 140,131 barrels a day (bpd) of crude and 181,215 bpd of oil products, according to its Web site (www.pnatrade.com).

Petral enjoys a confessional Singapore corporate tax rate of 10 percent. The standard rate is 22 percent.

The tax status is reviewed every couple of years by the Singapore government trade body, International Enterprise (IE).

IE has declined to comment on the investigation of Petral.