Telkom won't meet reaudit deadline: Official

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.