Vice president still sides with QSAR

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite the hundreds of billions of rupiah in investor money which was lost at PT Qurnia Subur Alam Raya (QSAR), vice president Hamzah Haz surprisingly defended the company that he once visited, and even floated the idea of taking over the bankrupt company.

Hamzah still believed that PT QSAR, which recently collapsed with 6,800 investors together with their Rp 460 billion (US52 million), was a legitimate business that needed the government's help.

Moreover, PT QSAR like other small and medium-sized enterprises contributed foreign exchange to the state.

"When I visited the company, I was told that the company had made 155 exports," he said.

When queried about the huge amount of money gone with the company, Hamzah said: "If it was not doing a legitimate business, why didn't the police or the investors file a complaint from the beginning?"

He said he had instructed Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih to coordinate efforts to look into the possibility of salvaging the company.

But Bungaran complained that the management of PT QSAR was very vague, and therefore, he faced difficulties to collect data about the company and its assets.

"Without complete information, it would be difficult for us to solve this PT QSAR problem," the minister was quoted by Antara as saying.

Meanwhile, a group of people from the National Mandate Party (PAN) on Friday staged a rally at police headquarters in Sukabumi, West Java, where PT QSAR's president Ramli Araby was being questioned by the police.

They demanded the police treat Ramli fairly.

PAN chairman Amien Rais, also speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, was among those who visited PT QSAR's operations in Sukabumi.

The police on Friday declared Ramli as a suspect in the scam after questioning him for about 18 hours.

The police refused to reveal the results of the questioning.

Suara Pembaruan afternoon daily, nevertheless, quoted a source at the Sukabumi police office as saying that Ramli had only $1,000 in the bank account that he showed them.