Telkom won't meet reaudit deadline: Official

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Publicly listed telecommunications company PT Telkom may not be able to meet this month's deadline set by U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to complete a reaudit of its 2002 financial accounts.

"We expect to complete (the reauditing work) by early November," Telkom's president commissioner Bacelius Ruru told reporters on Wednesday.

Ruru said Telkom's board of directors have notified the SEC about the delay.

However, Ruru did not provide any explanation as to the cause of the delay.

The SEC had demanded Telkom, which has shares listed both in Jakarta and New York, to resubmit its 2002 accounts because the initial report was audited by an accounting firm which was not properly registered in the U.S. Failure to do so could risk its shares being removed from the New York Stock Exchange. Telkom had failed to meet the original July 15 deadline because of difficulties in finding an approved accounting firm, but so far the U.S. stock market watchdog has not applied any sanctions.

Telkom, which had appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to do the reaudit work, had previously said that extra time was needed in order to make several adjustments to the earlier version of the 2002 financial report.

The company said it expects these adjustments would affect information presented both according to local and U.S. accounting standards.

According to the initial version of the 2002 financial report, Telkom made a net profit of Rp 8.34 trillion, nearly double its 2001 profit.