SP's new management now in control of company, Gresik says
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite resistance from some employees and a sacked top executive, the new management of PT Semen Padang (SP) is now in control of the company, parent company PT Semen Gresik claims.
Semen Gresik president Satriyo said that the new management team was now able to carry out its important duties.
"I can say that although the new management works from outside the office, control over financial management is fully within its grasp," he told reporters on Thursday during a press conference held to unveil Semen Gresik's 2002 financial report.
Early last month, an extraordinary shareholders meeting of SP appointed new boards of directors and commissioners for the company because its old management was considered to have rebelled against the parent company by withholding the company's financial report. This caused the publicly-listed Semen Gresik to be unable to meet the March 30 deadline for submitting its 2002 financial report to the stock exchange authorities.
The old management declined to heed the ruling of the extraordinary shareholders meeting, and vowed to stay at their posts. Local media in Padang, West Sumatra, reported that thousands of SP employees blocked the entrance to the cement factory to bar the new management from entering the plant.
State-owned Semen Gresik, the country's largest cement producer with a total capacity of 17.25 million metric tons, holds 99.99 percent of SP's shares.
Satriyo said that conflict over SP had apparently died down as the local government in West Sumatra had welcomed the installment of the new board of directors and board of commissioners.
"What the people of West Sumatra demand is the spin-off of Semen Padang, and we are heeding their call by continuing the push for this," he said.
As for SP's old president and the employees who remain hostile to the policies of the new management, he said the police would settle the matter.
"We have to ask the police to help end this conflict because they are the law enforcers," he said.
He pledged that within the next one week, the new management would be able to perform all its daily duties effectively.
Elsewhere, Satriyo said that Semen Gresik was planning to refinance the US$69 million debt of SP.
"The planned refinancing program is aimed at short-term debts, including those owed to social security company PT Jamsostek," he said, adding that SP owed Rp 100 billion to the social security company and another Rp 75 billion to Bank Mandiri.