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The House of Representatives' state enterprises commission
will set up a working committee to probe alleged irregularities and
mismanagement in state enterprises, a member of the commission says.
Legislator Lili Asdjudiredja said Tuesday in Jakarta that the decision
to establish the special committee was made because State Minister for
State Enterprises Sugiharto had failed to provide satisfactory answers
during a hearing Monday evening.
Lili who chaired the hearing, said the working committee, whose members
would be appointed from the relevant House commissions, would carry out
its probe until the end of April.
Based on the results of the investigation, the committee would then
submit recommendations to the President, Lili said.
During the hearing, almost all the members of the commission questioned
the weak implementation of good corporate governance in state
enterprises. They also criticized Sugiharto for his failure to
implement the state enterprises master plan that he had been
responsible for himself in 2004.
Hasto Kristiyanto of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan) said the commission was disappointed with the minister's
apparent inability to remedy mismanagement problems in a host of state
enterprises.
"This minister is only able to take advantage of profitable state
firms, but is clearly unable to fix ailing and inefficient companies.
He has achieved nothing.
"Many sugarcane factories in Java are inefficient, and the PT AAF
fertilizer factory in Aceh has been unable to resume operations because
of a lack of gas supplies," he complained.
He further complained that the minister had failed to resolve
long-running industrial disputes in a number of state enterprises,
including the Bandung-based aerospace firm, PT Dirgantara Indonesia,
previously known as IPTN.
Hasto accused the minister of nepotism due to his appointing close
associates as the finance directors of Pertamina, the National
Logistics Agency (Bulog), and a number of other strategic industries.
"This minister appeared to be very competent and quick in settling the
leadership crisis at Bulog, but was not so competent in the cases of
PLN and Jamsostek," he said.
Nusron Wahid of the Golkar Party accused the minister of making no
progress on the agreement between the House and the government to buy
back stakes in PT Indosat and PT Telkom from Singapore's Temasek.
"As strategic companies, Indosat and Telkom must be controlled by the
state to maintain the national interest, especially in the defense
sector," he said.
The commission recently asked the Business Competition Supervisory
Commission (KPPU) to investigate alleged monopoly practices by Temasek
in the Indonesian telecommunications industry.
Idealisman Dacik of the Democratic Party (PD) and Nasrin of the
National Mandate Party (PAN) said that the probe needed to be
undertaken so as to provide legal and political reasons for the
President to evaluate the minister's performance.
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