Tanri foresees hurdles in his new job

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister for Empowerment of State Enterprises Tanri Abeng said yesterday he might face many political hurdles in his new job.

"That's why I must have support from the top," he said yesterday after the first plenary cabinet meeting at the Bina Graha presidential office, indicating that without support from President Soeharto he might not be able to accomplish his tasks.

He stressed that the new ministry was established based on a political decision, and that he would do his best for the country.

"But if I can't handle it, I will delegate it to the top," he said, stressing that political matters are not his business.

He said it would be regretful if the country's state-owned companies, which had tremendous potential, were not developed.

Strengthening state-owned companies should be based on professional principles, including an effective system run by capable people, Tanri explained.

"We need to form an effective working mechanism," he said.

The ministry overseeing state-owned enterprises is a new post in the current cabinet, and it is also Tanri's first cabinet appointment.

Tanri is a former chief executive officer of the well diversified Bakrie Group. Over the past couple of years, he was posted in several strategic informal jobs, and following the country's monetary crisis he was included in the Economic and Financial Resilience Council formed by the President to deal with the crisis.

Analysts have said that state-owned companies have been the cash cow of powerful people, including the ministers technically overseeing them.

During the previous cabinet's tenure, the public became aware of opaque utilization of funds by state companies under the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Ministry of Post, Telecommunications, and Tourism, the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Manpower.

As part of the country's IMF-sponsored economic reform program, the government earlier this year moved the supervision of state-owned companies to the Ministry of Finance from related technical ministers.

This week, the President inaugurated a new state minister to oversee state-owned enterprises.

It has yet to be decided where the new minister will have his office, but Minister of Finance Fuad Bawazier said he wanted Tanri Abeng to have an office on the same third floor with him.

"This would make coordination faster," Fuad said yesterday, adding that he would help Tanri with the staffing.

He explained that Indonesia needed Tanri's expertise to develop the country's 160 state-owned companies, including privatizing the healthy ones.

Fuad said that with Tanri's installment, he could focus on fiscal and monetary policy to fix the country's monetary crisis. (08)