One may recall in early February 2005, when then minister for state-owned enterprises Sugiharto wanted to make the state oil and gas company PT Pertamina a world-class integrated oil and gas company.
The restructuring program was made by appointing Martiono Hadianto -- the former short-lived president director of the company -- as its new chief commissioner.
Unfortunately, the company, which has been marred by acute and long mismanagement, cannot be expected to be a world-class company anytime soon, even though the salary of the chief commissioner was doubled from Rp 35 million (US$3,804) to Rp 75 million that same year.
The president director of the company himself receives twice that much. It means that high salary does not guarantee the management of the company will be professional and profitable. As regards profit, one may also recall that Malaysia's Petronas was once the younger sibling of PT Pertamina, and has now become a world-class company.
Since 2002 Petronas has enjoyed remarkable profits; it became the seventh top oil and gas company in 2003, and raked in a profit of $5 billion in 2004. As world oil prices now hover at around $145 a barrel, Petronas has reaped a record net profit of $18.1 billion for the 2007/2008 period.
One of the important tasks of Pertamina's board of commissioners is to direct and supervise the board of directors in the running of the company, including its oil and gas regulator BPMigas, but Martiono and his commissioners apparently did nothing to make the company profitable and internationally competitive.
However, the House of Representatives has established an inquiry committee and has grilled PT Pertamina's board of directors to investigate the company's fuel management practices, especially as regards irregularities in the import of crude oil and its fuel products.
Also questioned were the company's partnership with oil brokers that have insufficient capacity, coupled with a lack of transparency in the import process, which is blamed for causing the import of products to be more expensive than in neighboring countries.
As the House is now in recess, anxiety over interventions by certain individuals related to the above mentioned case appears. They could be government officials, oil and gas importers and brokers who play foul games with legislators.
M. RUSDI
Jakarta
