Summarecon objects freezing of its accounts
JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed property developer PT Summarecon Agung has reported to the Capital Market Supervisory Agency what it claims is the unlawful freezing of its accounts at several banks and the confiscation of its automobiles by the police.
Summarecon stated in the report, a copy of which was obtained yesterday by The Jakarta Post, that the police's actions were legally groundless and were not related at all to the criminal charges leveled against Summarecon's president, Sutjipto Nagaria.
The report was made by Summarecon's lawyers Lontoh & Kailimang on Wednesday after the police confiscated Summarecon's automobiles and froze its accounts at several banks following the investigation of Sutjipto Nagaria on charges of corruption and the illegal demolition of a building under construction in Tanjung Duren, West Jakarta.
Sutjipto and several other directors of PT Swaraeka Prasetia were questioned by the police late last month on charges of embezzling US$13.12 million and Rp 16 billion in loans from Bank Rakyat Indonesia.
Lawyer Denny Kailimang stated in the well-documented report that it was PT Surya Dewata, a shareholder of PT Swaraeka Prasetia, which borrowed the funds from Bank Rakyat Indonesia for financing the construction of a shopping center in Tanjung Duren.
"The loans, which were secured with a 29,315 square meter block of land owned by Surya Dewata in Tanjung Duren, had entirely been used in 1992 before Summarecon joined Swaraeka Prasetia as a shareholder in February, 1994," Kailimang asserted.
He added that it was Surya Dewata's director Ali Santoso who initially invited Summarecon to become a shareholder in the construction of the shopping center after he failed to complete the project.
Kailimang recounted that Summarecon joined the project by putting in $9 million in capital in a new company, PT Swaraeka Prasetia, set up to own and continue the construction of the shopping center. Other shareholders of Swaraeka Prasetia were PT Surya Dewata and PT Atiga Swakerta.
He said the shareholders, however, were embroiled in a dispute on how to proceed with the project and they later agreed in 1996 to sell the project and its land to repay the loans to Bank Rakyat Indonesia.
But before the sale took place, Bank Rakyat Indonesia decided to hand over Swaraeka's debts to the State Receivership Agency in February 1998, the report added.
"Based on this evidence, we declare that the police freezing Summarecon's bank accounts and the confiscation of six of its automobiles are unlawful and in violation of the Criminal Code," Kailimang asserted.
He argued that the confiscated automobiles were not in anyway related to the case against Sutjipto. The freezing of Summarecon's bank accounts was also legally groundless because Summarecon was only a shareholder of PT Swaraeka Prasetia and as a legal entity it could not become a subject in a criminal case. (vin)