T

he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was forced to delay its investigation into a graft-ridden multimillion dollar gas contract in Bangkalan regency, Madura Island, after former high ranking officials from state-owned oil and gas giant Pertamina and now-defunct Upstream Oil and Gas Executive Agency (BPMigas) failed to show up for questioning on Tuesday.

BPMigas was disbanded by the Constitutional Court in November 2012 and later replaced by the graft-ridden Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas), whose former chief Rudi Rubiandini was sentenced to seven years in July for accepting bribes in a separate graft case.

KPK spokesman Johan Budi said that Tuesday'€™s questioning intended to seek testimonies from Tri Siwindono and Haposan Napitupulu, respectively former president director and director of Pertamina EP, which is the upstream business unit of state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina as well as former BPMigas chief Kardaya Warnika,
but to no avail.

'€œWe will reschedule their questioning in the near future,'€ Johan said on Tuesday without giving exact dates for the future questioning.

Pertamina came into the spotlight following the arrest of former Bangkalan regent Fuad Amin Imron, who currently serves as the regency'€™s legislative council speaker, for allegedly accepting '€œroutine'€ bribes for his services helping PT Media Karya Sentosa obtain a gas and oil contract from Pertamina'€™s subsidiary Pertamina Hulu Energi West Madura Offshore (PHE WMO) in 2007.

It is reported that PHE WMO appointed Pertamina EP to distribute gas to Media Karya.

It is alleged that the summoned former high ranking EP and BPMigas officials were in power when the gas contract was signed in 2007, raising further speculations that they might have been involved in the decision making of the
gas contract.

KPK deputy chairman Adnan Pandu Praja said that the questioning of Pertamina EP was important to seek clarification regarding alleged irregularities plaguing the gas contract.

'€œWe want to know how serious the alleged irregularities are. We want to know why the distribution of gas and its payment kept flowing [since 2007] while in fact there is no pipe built for gas to be distributed to gas-fueled power plants [PLTGs] in the region,'€ Adnan told reporters at the KPK headquarters on Tuesday.

In his capacity as Bangkalan regent in 2007, Fuad approved the contract after he was alleged to have accepted payments from Media Karya on many occasions.

To be able to buy gas directly from PHE WMO, Media Karya is alleged to have signed a contract with regency-owned company PD Sumber Jaya to facilitate the payment from Media Karya to PHE.

As part of the contract, Media Karya is entitled to build a pipe connecting PTLGs in Gresik and Bangkalan to the West Madura gas block, but the deal never materialized. Consequently, the gas never arrived at the two PLGS in 2007, raising further questions about where the gas had been channeled.

Due to the inexistence of the gas pipe, Bangkalan, until today, has been suffering an electricity crisis for years.

Pandu said the antigraft body was currently tracing where the gas has been channeled and added that it was too early to claim that it was Pertamina that had to be responsible for the non-establishment of
the gas pipe.

'€œThat'€™s something that we need to dig more on, why the pipe is not built. They said that the investment cost was too high to build the pipe, but we don'€™t take things for granted,'€ Pandu said without elaborating who he meant by '€œthey'€.

Pertamina has repetitively maintain innocence in the case. Communications and relations manager of PHE WMO, Donna M. Priadi, dismissed all of the allegations. '€œPHE WMO never signed a gas contract with [Media Karya],'€ Donna said.

She further revealed that PHE WMO had never signed an oil agreement with PD Sumber Jaya. '€œPHE WMO also does not have a contract with the Bangkalan [administration],'€ she said.