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Committee finds former BI officials unprofessional
After grilling three former Bank Indonesia (BI) officials, the House of Representatives Bank Century inquiry committee says even high-ranking officials make schoolboy mistakes
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fter grilling three former Bank Indonesia (BI) officials, the House of Representatives Bank Century inquiry committee says even high-ranking officials make schoolboy mistakes.
Those questioned Wednesday were former BI deputy governors Maman Sumantri and Maulana Ibrahim and former bank supervision director Rusli Simanjuntak.
They were questioned over the BI decision to allow three ailing banks — Bank Danpac, Bank Pikko, and Bank CIC — to merge to become Bank Century, although their owners had conducted many violations.
The committee also questioned the officials regarding BI’s approval of a short-term liquidity loan (FPJP) worth Rp 689 billion to Bank Century in November 2008. This loan is considered controversial because Bank Century did not have a sufficient capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to be eligible for it.
An audit report from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) says the justification for the Century loan was then made possible based on an alleged fabrication of data by BI, which changed its own regulations on the minimum CAR banks needed to be eligible for the loan.
Those questioned Wednesday responded to legislators’ questions by stating their lack of knowledge or claiming they were not authorized to answer those questions.
“Our inquiry session today showed that Bank Indonesia’s top officials had no comprehension of their responsibilities,” said committee deputy chairman Gayus Lumbuun from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
Andi Rakhmat from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said the officials’ apparent ignorance of their responsibilities was not the most important fact the committee could learn from the session.
“What we could find out is that there is a tradition within Bank Indonesia of playing with money laundering using banks like Bank Century,” he said.
BI officials’ ignorance of standard banking supervision procedures became evident when committee member Melchias Mekeng of the Golkar Party questioned Maulana on his statement in an official BI memo that said the merger was “definitely needed, and the sooner the better”.
“Did you check the banks’ liquidity?” Melchias asked.
“No,” Maulana said, only after prevaricating, adding that he had added a note that their liquidity could be checked with bank supervision directorate.
Gayus said Maulana’s answer was not satisfactory. “The essence of the statement was the three banks needed to be merged, not the small side notes,” he said.
Hendrawan Supratikno of the PDI-P also cornered Maman on why the former deputy governor had let Bank CIC acquire the two other banks in July 2002, even when he was aware there was a report that Bank CIC had traded false bonds.
Maman remained silent, leading Hendrawan to conclude that he had made a mistake.
