T

he Capital Market and Financial Services Supervisory Agency (Bapepam-LK) defended on Thursday the reappointment of incumbent Ito Warsito as the president of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX).

Bapepam-LK head Nurhaida said that the reappointment of the current IDX president was important to ensure the smooth transition process of the country’s financial supervision system.

She said that the transition period was the shifting of monetary and of stock market monitoring authorities from Bank Indonesia and Bapepam-LK respectively to the Financial Services Authority (OJK), set to be established in 2013.

“Therefore, we felt that Pak Ito Warsito, as an incumbent, had an advantage over the other contenders for the IDX president director post and chose him,” Nurhaida told reporters at her office in Jakarta on Friday.

Nurhaida added that the IDX was also in the process of massive restructuring.

Bapepam-LK named Ito along with six others as the new IDX board of directors for the 2012-2015 period.

Other than Ito, the board comprises Hoesen as director of corporate listing, Samsul Hidayat as director of trade and management of bourse members, Ureip Budhi Prasetyo as director of supervision and compliance, Frederica Widyasari Dewi as director of business development, Adikin Basirun as director of information technology and risk management and Hamdi Hassarbaini as director of finance and human resources.

Four out of those seven directors are incumbents and the newcomers on the list are Hoesen, Hamdi and Samsul.

The seven chosen directors are a mix of three leadership packages offered by stock exchange members.

Bapepam-LK then conducted a fit-and-proper test on 21 candidates from the three packages and selected the individuals that they believed to be the best. This led to a board of directors which was made up of nominees from more than one package.

Nurhaida said that although the directors came from different packages, all of them had been aware of this possibility.

“We told them prior to the fit-and-proper test that they might share director posts with people from the other packages. Therefore, they were aware of the possibility and they should be prepared to work together,” she said.

Nurhaida said that the Bapepam-LK expected the newly appointed board of directors to have completed their preliminary working program formulation by next week.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) coordinator Apung Widadi said that the public needed to be cautious and to take note of the performance of the newly selected IDX board of directors because he believed Bapepam-LK had not been fully transparent during the fit-and-proper test.

Apung said that most of the candidates had conflicts of interests that could undermine their credibility.

The board of directors will be officially established through an IDX stockholders meeting on June 27.