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Minister vows to keep SOEs politically neutral
After receiving a warning from the Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu) stating that several political parties had received support from state companies (SOEs), the office of the State Ministry for State Enterprises on Monday vowed to clear SOEs of politically vested interests
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After receiving a warning from the Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu) stating that several political parties had received support from state companies (SOEs), the office of the State Ministry for State Enterprises on Monday vowed to clear SOEs of politically vested interests.
“Bawaslu suspects there has been a violation of the election law, and has sent me a letter seeking clarification,” State Minister for State Enterprises Sofyan Djalil said Monday at a press conference attended by more than 40 SOE worker unions.
Sofyan pointed out last week’s incidents in which a labor union of state power company PLN, dubbed the Alliance of Labor Unions Against Privatization (Alkatras), held a press conference voicing its support for the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) at the PLN headquarters in South Jakarta. The conference was followed by political advertisements that appeared in several local newspapers on Saturday.
“I have explained to the committee that the initiator of this campaign was a PLN employee,” he said, adding that the office would leave sanctions in the hands the PLN board of directors.
“By law the initiator can be sentenced to between three and six months’ imprisonment, with a maximum fine of Rp 60 million.”
According to the election law and a government regulation, SOE employees are not allowed to actively participate in election campaigns or become legislative candidates.
“If SOEs fail to remain neutral, they could interfere with our public service obligations,” Sofyan said.
The ministry has also found similar violations involving state postal company PT Pos Indonesia.
“A worker was handing out Democratic Party brochures while serving customers at a post office.
This was treated as a criminal offense and has been sanctioned accordingly.”
There are 139 SOEs employing around 700,000 workers. (fmb)
