Top House member disagrees with new BLBI audit plan
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Chairman of the House of Representatives Commission IX on state budget and finance Benny Pasaribu strongly rejected on Friday the government's plan to appoint an international consultant to audit past emergency loans channeled by Bank Indonesia, saying that an independent audit had already been conducted by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).
He said that since the BPK audit had been made based on the instruction of the House, as one of the country's highest state institutions, the appointment of a new auditor by the government would only "damage" the state system and create an image of distrust in the work of BPK.
"As the Chairman of House Commission IX, I disagree with the plan to appoint a new auditor," Benny told The Jakarta Post.
"What we need now is action based on BPK's audit findings," he added.
Minister of Finance Boediono said earlier this week that the government planned a new audit to calculate the costs the government and the central bank must each bear over the huge Rp 144.5 trillion in (US$14 billion) emergency loans (popularly called BLBI) channeled to troubled banks at the peak of the 1997 financial crisis.
Several legislators said earlier that such an audit was no longer needed, what was required was action to push for a criminal investigation into alleged corruption of the huge loans.
Legislators argued that the government and Bank Indonesia (BI) had already reached an agreement last year whereby BI would cover Rp 24.5 trillion of the loans, while the remainder would be shouldered by the government.
According to last year's BPK audit report, some Rp 138.4 trillion of the loans had been abused, which the agency blamed on BI's weak supervision.
There have been concerns that the BLBI case would be swept under the carpet given the powerful people involved in what might be the country's largest ever corruption case.
In a related development, Bank Indonesia Governor Sjahril Sabirin insisted that the appointment of the new auditor was based on the recommendation of House Commission IX.
But Benny rejected this, saying that the commission had only urged both the government and the central bank to quickly resolve the burden-sharing issue based on BPK's audit and last year's agreement made during negotiations facilitated by the commission.
Asked about the reason for holding a meeting with the Supreme Advisory Council (DPA) on Thursday, Sjahril said he felt that the DPA needed sufficient information about the BLBI case to allow it to implement its job properly.
DPA gives advice to the President on various matters.
After the meeting, both Sjahril and DPA Chairman Ahmad Tirtosudiro, regarded as one of the country's most senior politicians, said that it was important for the government and Bank Indonesia to strive for consensus on the BLBI case, which had been dragging on for almost two years.