Workers file suit against Jamsostek board of directors

Workers file suit against Jamsostek board of directors

JAKARTA (JP): Lawyers acting on behalf of more than 100
workers filed a lawsuit yesterday against directors of the state-
owned workers' insurance company PT Jamsostek for the alleged
misuse of funds under its management, a court official said.

"A group of lawyers from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human
Rights Association (PBHI) have filed a lawsuit against directors
of PT Jamsostek," chief secretary Mugiono of the Jakarta State
Administrative Court told reporters.

He said the lawsuit was directed against three directors of
Jamsostek, including the president director and the finance
director.

"I will report and discuss the lawsuit with the head of the
court and we will then decide on when to hear the case, if
possible within two weeks," Mugiono said.

PBHI Executive Director Hendardi told reporters the suit was
also directed against the head of the investment division.

He said that his organization had received more than 130 power
of attorney letters requesting that his group take the case to
court. But only 104 of those came in time to be included in the
class-action lawsuit.

"We are demanding that the documents that ordered the money to
be drawn from the funds be revoked and declared nullified," said
lawyer Dwiyanto Prihartono, who heads the team of PBHI lawyers.

Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief said Thursday that on
President Soeharto's order, Rp 2.85 billion (US$712.500 million)
in Jamsostek funds had been used to finance the deliberation of
the manpower bill by the House members.

The 1992/1997 House of Representatives passed the bill on
Sept. 11. The manpower law will become effective on Oct. 1 next
year.

Press reports have cited documents saying that Rp 7.1 billion
of the funds had been used. But Jamsostek's president Abdillah
Nusi said later that only Rp 3.1 billion had been withdrawn.

Dwiyanto said that documents obtained by the group, and cited
in the lawsuit, show that Rp 5.1 billion was drawn from the
Jamsostek funds.

Latief said the money was used to pay for hotel accommodation,
food, secretarial and transportation expenses during the two-
month deliberation at Hotel Horison in Ancol, North Jakarta, and
at Kartika Chandra Hotel in South Jakarta.

Hendardi said that even though the President had issued the
order, the directors of PT Jamsostek were still legally
responsible for the use of the workers' insurance funds for
activities outside the interests of the 14.5 million workers who
contribute to it annually.

"We are also currently studying and preparing a lawsuit for
economic crime, " Hendardi said, adding that he hoped the lawsuit
would be completed in one month.

The Jakarta Provincial Prosecutor's office and the Development
Finance Comptroller have since questioned eight Jamsostek
executives, manpower and finance ministry officials and House of
Representative staff over the case.

Under the President's order, Jamsostek, which draws its funds
from worker contributions and levies on companies, had also used
the money to finance the repatriation of 24,000 illegal
Indonesian workers from Saudi Arabia last month.

About Rp 3 billion had been deposited in state banks to help
ease a liquidity problem.

Jamsostek's assets are worth Rp 5.3 trillion, with cumulative
profits in the past three years reaching Rp 476 billion, Latief
said. (10)