Pertamina 'lacks transparency'

Aditya Suharmoko ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 04/30/2008 1:10 PM  |  Headlines

State oil and gas firm PT Pertamina is far from transparent in revenue disclosure, leaving the door open to misuse of funds, a survey from Transparency International found Tuesday.

The organization surveyed 42 oil and gas companies worldwide.

Transparency International Indonesia said Tuesday that PT Pertamina scored badly when it came to the firm's payments to the government, its operations disclosure and contributions to corporate anti-corruption programs.

"Pertamina's revenue disclosure was relatively low," the group's deputy secretary-general, Rezki Wibowo, told a press conference.

However, Rezki was quick to add Pertamina scored well in goods and services procurement.

To conduct the survey, Transparency International used publicly available records dated from last year until February this year. Canada-based Talisman Energy and U.S.-based Chevron were among the best performing companies in Indonesia in terms of payments to the government and operations information disclosure.

The China National Petroleum Corporation, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Malaysia-based Petronas, however, scored badly in disclosing operations information and implementing anti-corruption programs.

Pertamina's assistant to the president director Didi Sunarwinadi said the company had initiated anti-corruption programs one-and-a-half years ago to help combat corruption in the company.

"Based on our surveys, we know people still perceive Pertamina as corrupt. We are trying to change that," said Didi.

On the company's low score in operations information disclosure, Didi said the company had tried to disclose the information.

Transparency International said oil and gas firms should actively report their balance sheets to host governments. High-scoring companies, such as Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Brazilian Petrobras, Norwegian StatoilHydro ASA and Petro-Canada, are expected to be role models for the industry.

U.S.-based ExxonMobil Corporation, Russian OAO Lukoil and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation fell into the low-scoring category.

The group said the report was aimed at combating the so-called resource curse -- oil can generate great wealth for a country, but if it is poorly managed, it can also discourage the development of other economic areas, spur corruption and trigger conflict.

Transparency International said if only 10 percent of the estimated US$866 billion generated worldwide in oil revenue in 2006 had been set aside, the amount would have been enough to cover the cost of meeting the United Nations' targets in slashing the number of people living in poverty and in improving education systems worldwide.

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