State asset reports require double checking: Sumarlin

JAKARTA (JP): Reports on state assets must be examined thoroughly, Chairman of the Supreme Audit Agency, J. B. Sumarlin, said yesterday.

"We need a balance sheet to know the developments of all of our state assets -- what, how many and where they are," he said here yesterday after submitting a report on the agency's auditing of state budget implementation in the first semester of 1993-1994 to the House of Representatives.

"We have to examine the reports on state assets and their use through cross-checking with other reports," he said.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the publisher of the annual State Assets Inventory, Indonesia's state assets, consisting mostly of land and buildings, were worth Rp 53.7 trillion (US$24.8 billion) as of April 1, 1994.

Sumarlin said yesterday, however, that the assets report should be examined thoroughly due to "lack of orderliness among government officials."

A vice chairman of the State Audit Agency, Kunarto, later told reporters that the agency had uncovered a number of cases of fraud at the cumulative amount of Rp 600 billion in a period from April 1 to Sept. 30, 1993.

Kunarto clarified that the agency had examined about 10 percent of the total number of cases uncovered throughout the country.

"You can imagine yourself how much money we lost," he said.

Sumarlin, a former minister of finance himself, has been mentioned repeatedly in relation to pressure put on four former Bank Bapindo executives to motivate them to give loans to businessman Eddy Tansil, the alleged perpetrator of a US$433 million bank scam.

He consistently denies the charges that he was involved in the bank scam, saying that he never knew Tansil personally.

Shortcomings

Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad acknowledged the shortcomings in the inventory in June, most notably those of the state assets administered by provincial governments.

But Mar'ie said the result of the latest inventory seemed much closer to reality because cumulative government investments over the past 25 years, without being reduced by depreciation, had totaled Rp 85 trillion.

Sumarlin said yesterday that in a bid to improve the monitoring of state finances, the State Audit Agency would, as of yesterday, open its financial reports to the public every six months, instead of each year.

The Speaker of the House, Wahono, said government officials must use every rupiah of the state budget effectively due to the current financial constraints.

He said that he will distribute copies of the report to the various House commissions soon and urge legislators to pay more attention to supervising the use of state assets.

In a related development, Kunarto denied collusion between the government and the State Audit Agency, saying that the agency has never asked the government to update its financial statements prior to the delivery of the agency reports to the House. (09)