Vietnamese official denies deal with PTSI
JAKARTA (JP): A major business deal with Vietnam, which state- owned PT Surveyor Indonesia's president Toga M. Sitompul claimed last month to be in the bag, has turned out to be nonexistent.
Ngo Khac Nghia, the commercial attache at the Vietnamese embassy here, denied a project was in the pipeline.
"We don't have any business deal planned with PTSI. Any such deal would have to be done on a government-to-government basis," Ngo said on Monday in commenting on several newspaper reports about a reported US$600 million contract between the Vietnamese government and PTSI.
Toga divulged the deal at a news conference last month which he convened to rebut allegations the company was rife with gross inefficiency and shady dealings.
He claimed PTSI had expanded and diversified its business, including a contract for the inspection of a natural gas pipeline project with the Vietnamese government.
Deputy director Gannett Pontjowinoto clarified that the signing of the deal might be postponed until January.
Gannett also corrected the media reports, saying the value of the contract might amount to only $75,000.
PTSI, which is 76 percent owned by the government, 20 percent by Swiss Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) and 4 percent by Sucofindo, was set up in July 1991 to take over the preshipment inspection of Indonesian imports from SGS. The contract was terminated on April 1, 1997.
Toga also denied allegations last month by the House of Representatives Commission VIII in charge of finance, budget and state companies that PTSI was inefficient and its operations had overlapped with another state company, PT Sucofindo, which has been operating in quality inspection since the 1960s.
La Ode Kamaluddin, a Golkar member of the commission, renewed the attack on Thursday over what he called gross inefficiency, reckless spending for questionable asset acquisition and lack of professionalism.
La Ode reaffirmed his suggestion to the state minister of the empowerment of state enterprises, Tanri Abeng, that PTSI be merged with PT Sucofindo because the former had failed to significantly develop new businesses after the termination of its import inspection contract with the government.
"How could the government allow a president of a state company to concurrently act as financial director in the same company?" he said in reference to Toga's dual positions.
La Ode also wondered how the supervision of PTSI could be made effective when its chief supervisor, Soedarjono, is also the chief of the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) which annually audits the company's financial reports.
The House member cited findings in the BPKP audit of PTSI's 1997 financial reports which, he said, testified to poor financial management.
PTSI's 1997 audited financial reports, released in February, disclosed the firm suffered Rp 2.42 billion (US$540,000 at the rate last December) in losses from mutual fund investments unrelated to its core business.
BPKP auditors concluded that PTSI's new businesses had not made any headway. Revenues from new businesses reached only 20.40 percent of the 1997 targets.
According to the reports, import inspection services (January- March 1997) accounted for almost 95 percent -- Rp 206.2 billion -- of total 1997 revenues of Rp 217.5 billion.
Another government contract to PTSI in August 1997 for the inspection of imported equipment for the oil and gas industry contributed Rp 8.58 billion. PTSI's revenues from new businesses outside government contracts thus amounted only to Rp 2.8 billion, or 1.3 percent.
"PTSI seems to have survived only because of the contracts and captive market granted by the government," La Ode charged.
BPKP also found that sales of assets of the 13 PTSI overseas branches closed last year were made without proper asset evaluation, a procedural violation.
"I will continue to fight in my House commission until PTSI is entirely cleaned up of inefficiency and malfeasance," La Ode vowed. (29/vin)