The political infighting over the Bank Century scandal has now clouded the real problems behind the fiasco. Politicians are all wildly beating their drums, but are letting the real culprits make off with massive sums of money.
Many politicians and activists have wrongly targeted Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and then Bank Indonesia governor Boediono, now Vice President, for their decision to bailout the problem-riddled Bank Century.
They are even wrongly painting Mulyani and Boediono with the same brush as former deputy attorney general Abdul Hakim Ritonga and former National Police chief detective Susno Duadji, who both lost their positions for their alleged involvement in the framing of suspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chiefs, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah.
Those politicians and activists have blindly demanded that Mulyani and Boediono resign, just like Ritonga and Susno.
But blaming Mulyani and Boediono for the Century scandal is simply misguided. Both Mulyani and Boediono are people of integrity. They are purely victims of situation and political maneuvering by power-hungry politicians and some free riders - including some anti-globalization activists.
People may forget that when Mulyani and Boediono sat on the Committee for Stabilization of Financial Sector (KSSK) on Nov. 20 last year to decide the fate of Bank Century, the world was in the grip of the global financial crisis.
It's easy to blame the two now that we are out of the crisis. We cannot imagine now how dire the situation was at the time. Money was flying out of the country at a phenomenal rate because our government was not providing blanket guarantees, while those of our neighbors were.
Imagine if the two had decided to not bail out Bank Century. The repercussions on our banking system might have been very different. We should in fact be crediting Mulyani and Boediono for the decisions they made during that uncertain time, including their decision to bail out Bank Century, and for the fact that we do not have major problems in our banking system today.
The core problem with Bank Century lies not with Mulyani and Boediono, but with those who have robbed the bank and allowed it to go bust. Who are they?
They are the shareholders of the bank, who stole from the bank with the help of the bank's management, and Bank Indonesia's banking supervisors who let the crimes take place repeatedly.
Robert Tantular, one of the shareholders, has been sent to jail for four years for one minor charge that caused the bank to suffer losses. He, however, escaped another two major charges of swindling a huge amount of money from the bank with the help of bank managers.
Robert fingered two foreign shareholders, Hesham El Warraq and Rafat Ali Rizvihave, as the thieves, but the police have faced difficulties in catching them as they have reportedly fled the country.
According to the Supreme Audit Agency's (BPK) investigative audit, of the total Rp 6.7 trillion bailout money, Rp 5.86 trillion was to cover losses resulting from criminal acts by shareholders, bank managers and affiliated parties.
How the bank's owners and managers could defraud so much money from the bank is mind-boggling as the bank had been under special supervision by Bank Indonesia for years leading up to the fiasco. It's hard to believe that Bank Indonesia supervisors could have turned a blind eye to the criminal activity of shareholders and bank's own management. It finally took an order from then vice president Jusuf Kalla for the police to arrest Robert Tantular.
Boediono, who was then the governor of Bank Indonesia, was morally responsible for the weak supervision of Bank Century. But to be fair, he shouldn't shoulder full responsibility as he only assumed his position as the governor in May 2008 while the weak supervision of Century went as far back as early 2005. Boediono himself once said the central bank's banking supervision needed to be reformed.
We should take this as an opportunity to fast-track the establishment of the Financial Sector Authority (OJK), as mandated by Bank Indonesia law, to take over bank supervision duties from the central bank.
On the next issue, people may question Boediono's and Mulyani's motives to bail out Century. People suspect that the decision was made to save the accounts of customers who contributed money to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his campaign team. Some even suspect that the bailout was designed to steal state money and launder it through the bank to finance Yudhoyono's legislative and presidential campaigns.
The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has conducted an investigation into the decision making process. It concluded that decisions made by the central bank was not supported by enough up-to-date data, and was not guided by clear parameters. It's always easy to point out mistakes with the aid of hindsight but that is not what's important.
What is important is to prove whether the motive of the bailout was indeed to channel funds to Yudhoyono's campaign. But the BPK's audit reports did not reveal any evidence of that, and it's hard to believe Boediono and Mulyani could have been influenced by interest groups to make criminal decisions in the Century case.
Yudhoyono himself has publicly stated that neither he nor his campaign team received any of Century's bailout funds, and he would welcome any investigation. Yudhoyono and his campaign team may not have benefited from the Century bailout. But looking into reports so far, there are indeed some parties profiting from the bailout. Susno Duadji, for example, admitted that he helped Budi Sampoerna, Century's biggest depositor. Did he receive kickbacks? Did he act alone or with other parties?
There are still a lot of unanswered questions. Therefore, we hope that the direction of the Bank Century investigation will uncover crimes, recover lost money and avoid taking aim at the easy targets of Boediono and Mulyani, who have not profited financially or politically from the fallout.
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