The monopoly watchdog will rule on Nov. 2 on the controversial tender for the MRT project, an official says, as another state agency says an ethical breach of conduct has indeed taken place.
Ahmad Junaidi, the Business Competition Supervisory Commission’s (KPPU) director of communications, said the commission planned to summon the Transportation Ministry’s former director general of railways, Wendi Aritenang, some time during the third week of October to clarify the matter.
“After that, we’ll deliberate, the result of which should be announced on Nov. 2,” Ahmad told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The debacle over Jakarta’s long-awaited Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) — an Rp 11 trillion (US$1.16 billion) project heralded as the solution to the city’s endemic traffic problems — began when the ministry held a tender in which Katahira Engineers International, Nippon Koei Co. Ltd. and Pacific Consultant International participated in February 2008.
The ministry, through its railway division, initially appointed Katahira the winner of the bidding process, followed by Nippon Koei and Pacific Consultant International, which later withdrew.
The ministry then changed its decision and declared Nippon Koei the project’s new consulting firm.
Indonesian Procurement Watch (IPW), an NGO focusing on procurements for public facilities, accused JICA — the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the institution in charge of distributing loans from the Japanese government for Indonesian projects — of interfering in the process by asking the ministry in January 2008 to re-evaluate the bidding process results.
It was later revealed Nippon Koei had also sent a letter to the ministry, an act IPW alleges is intervention.
Hayie Muhammad, IPW’s director of programs, said the ministry had initially responded by reis-
suing a similar result and choosing Katahira.
However, a newly appointed railway director general, Tunjung Indrawan, established a new committee to once again re-evaluate the bidding result, choosing Nippon Koei this time as the winner.
IPW reported the matter to the KPPU, which has since questioned IPW, the accused party and several ministry officials.
In a related development, IPW announced Wednesday the Institution for the Procurement of Government Goods and Services (LKPP) had declared Nippon Koei had indeed breached ethical conduct by sending a letter to the ministry.
“If it’s just letters, then everyone’s disqualified,” said Bambang S. Ervan, head of the ministry’s communications department, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.
“Everybody sent letters [to the tender committee].”
He said the MRT project would never see the light of day if the public “wants to keep making a problem out of the letters”, but quickly added the ministry would allow the due legal process to prevail.
Nippon Koei could not be reached for comment, with an executive of its Indonesian branch saying no one from the company currently residing in Indonesia was authorized to comment on the matter.
Eddi Santosa, corporate director of PT MRT Jakarta, also refused to comment, saying he respected the current investigation into the tender, but was more concerned with providing Jakarta with a much-needed MRT network.
