We had hoped the parliament would have returned to focusing on the best interests of the people after almost three months of the Bank Century inquiry, which concluded that Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Vice President Boediono should face a criminal investigation for their role in the 2008 bailout.
After all, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has pledged to seriously study and follow up the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry committee.
The Corruption Eradication Commission has set up three special teams to investigate alleged corruption in the bailout and has drawn a clear-cut job description with other law enforcers, whereby the National Police and Attorney General’s Office (AGO) will handle criminal cases other than corruption, related to the case.
But alas, instead of allowing law enforcers adequate time to address the case, which requires months of complex investigations of financial transactions and bank mergers dating back to 2004, the strongest proponents of the special inquiry have continued their political harassment, even to the point of threatening to boycott any official meetings with both Mulyani and Boediono.
The power-hungry politicians are acting like a tiger that has tasted blood, demanding the finance minister and the Vice President quit or be suspended, even though neither have been declared suspects.
In fact we strongly believe that law enforcers will never find any strong evidence to implicate either of them in corruption or other crimes related to the bailout, which succeeded in preventing the country from financial debacle in 2008, following the fallout from the global financial crisis.
It is now much clearer that the primary and real motive of the majority of the House of Representatives members in investigating the bailout, was not to root out corruption, improve governance nor develop better rules and protocols for a management system that could face a financial crisis in the future. They continued their dodgy politics, harassing policymakers and distracting them from economic management at the expense of the people’s interests.
So preoccupied and obsessed have been many parliamentarians from opposition parties that they have been acting as if the US$700 million Bank Century bailout case could have been the end of the world for the $550 billion Indonesian economy.
That is rather strange and even a tragedy because the bank (now Bank Mutiara) is running well and the chances are good that most of the bailout money can be recouped from the sale of the bank within three to five years.
If the House members really care about the public, they should allow law enforcers the opportunity to follow up the inquiry committee’s finding and move on to tackle other issues.
Nearly seven months after House members were inaugurated in 2009, they have nothing to show for in terms of meeting the basic needs of the people.
If parliamentarians do care about the people, they should now prioritize economy-related legislation, such as the proposed amendments to the 2010 state budget, bills on the financial system safety net, capital market and financial service authority.
Boycotting meetings with Finance Minister Sri Mulyani will destroy the core elements of public administration and damage key economic programs. Continued political harassment of such a credible, internationally respected technocrat, who is also Indonesia’s spokesperson at the respected Group of 20 major economies will make investors jittery.
We should remember that in the financial world, perception is everything. Jittery investors could suddenly plunge the country into a financial and economic crisis because the bulk of capital inflows has thus far been short-term, hot money.
We are really in a precarious condition now, not only because portfolio capital is highly vulnerable to political risk, which is now on the horizon, but also as we don’t yet have any legislative foundation in place to manage distressed banks or a financial crisis in the future.
