Another threat has emerged to the right of taxpayers to know how their money is being spent, with the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) having agreed in principle to recent calls to restrict the publication of its audit findings on state banks.

However, the BPK has yet to completely succumb to the pressure, saying there must first be a clear legal basis and an official request from the House of Representatives in line with its duty of holding all state agencies and firms to account.

It also asserted that state lenders were required to maintain a higher level of prudentiality and transparency in their operations compared to private banks as they not only managed funds belonging to individual depositors, but also assets that belonged to the state.

"This fact alone makes them different from private banks. Audit findings on private banks may only concern their shareholders, but the story is different when you have to answer to the state, to the whole public," BPK member Baharuddin Aritonang told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"The management of state banks must accept this higher public duty to not cause losses to the state. If they do not want to receive bad audit reviews, then they must transparently improve their performances."

Aritonang further said the BPK's publicizing of its audit results on state banks -- and other state firms -- was in line with the 2004 State Funds Audit Law, which required the publication of the findings after their official submission to the House.

However, Bank Indonesia and the House finance commission agreed during a hearing last week to ask the BPK to restrict publication in line with the principle of banking secrecy, as enshrined in the National Banking Law.

BI Governor Burhanuddin Abdullah said that recent negative publicity on state lenders -- including revelations of rising non-performing loans and BPK findings of lending irregularities -- had resulted in important customers of state banks questioning their credibility and switching their funds to private or foreign-owned banks.

Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) president Sigit Pramono confirmed this, and admitted that BNI had lost one of its largest customers recently.

Aritonang, however, said the matter was still hypothetical. "There have been no major runs on state lenders to date," he said.

"Incidences of customers leaving state banks could, in fact, concern unscrupulous customers who fear the BPK might reveal their irregular transactions with the banks," he said.

Burhanuddin had earlier said the House would need to first send an official request to the BPK on the matter, bearing in mind that the BPK was established by the Constitution in the same way as the House.

"Only then will we be able to discuss the matter, consult with one another and agree on which aspects of our audit findings are perhaps too sensitive for publication," said Burhanuddin.

Currently, the Financial Transaction and Report Analysis Center and the Corruption Eradication Commission are the only state agencies to which the banking secrecy law does not apply in cases concerning alleged money laundering and corruption.