Tentacles of corruption
If only that handful of officials at Pertamina had been honest about the whole thing from the start, the state-owned oil company most likely would not have found itself entangled in the increasingly confounding maze of lies and falsehoods that it now must unravel. But old habits die hard.
As most of us must know by now, the Pertamina tanker scandal began innocently enough. Earlier this month, 24 members of House of Representatives Commission VIII -- several of them accompanied by their spouses -- went on a brief tour of Hong Kong and South Korea, ostensibly to study the benefits of selling two very large crude carriers, known in the oil business as VLCCs, to bidders there.
The question naturally arose as to who paid for the trip. Word circulated through the grapevine that Pertamina was "sponsoring" the trip to influence the legislators into approving the sale of the tankers. Both the commission members and Pertamina denied the company paid for the trip -- until newspapers reported the existence of a Pertamina document confirming the company had indeed financed the legislators' overseas tour.
Confronted with this evidence, Pertamina conceded, in part, that it was true. Pertamina, company officials said, was "lending" money to the House commission to cover half of the costs of the trip, with the money to be paid back at a later date.
The oil company was still sticking to this position when a new piece of damning news broke that it was selling the two VLCCs to the Bermuda-based Frontline Ltd., which finished second in the tender for the carriers, thus bypassing tender winner Essar Shipping Ltd.
It is for the state auditors and perhaps the court of law to determine the truth behind all of this confusion. According to the deputy head of the government-sanctioned Corruption Eradication Commission, Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas, the legislators could be eligible for up to 20 years in prison if they fail to explain who paid for their overseas trips within 30 days.
In the meantime, with the Pertamina tanker scandal still unresolved, a new case of suspected corruption on a massive scale has surfaced, this time involving the illegal import of thousands of tons of sugar. Implicated in this case are state plantation company PTPN X, the Association of Village Cooperatives and possibly a number of officials at the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The furor started after the Indonesian Sugarcane Farmers Association reported to the police last week its discovery of 56,000 tons of smuggled sugar being stored in a warehouse in Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta. The matter is at present under investigation, as is the Pertamina tanker scandal.
Given that so many large corruptors continue to escape justice, however, many people are justifiably skeptical about the final results of the investigations. Between January 2002 and April of this year alone, the state is estimated to have lost about Rp 22 trillion, or US$2.35 billion, to corruption. Only about Rp 1.2 billion of that amount has been recovered.
People would be excused for assuming that these figures are highly conservative estimates, since corruption in its many forms pervades much of life here, from the highest levels of government down to the village and neighborhood levels.
Unfortunately, without drastic changes there is little hope that things will be different in the foreseeable future, since many of the legislators currently sitting in the House are expected to return when the newly elected House is sworn in later this year.
Given all this, the best hope Indonesians have of seeing a better future is through the election of a president and vice president who are genuinely committed to good governance and democratic reform. In the end, though, it is up to us to begin building in earnest a healthy civil society strong enough to steer the nation in the right direction.