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Pertamina apologizes for graft-ridden fuel import scandal
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President director Riva Siahaan of PT Pertamina Patra Niaga, the commercial arm of state-owned oil and gas giant Pertamina, is detained after being named a suspect in a corruption case by the Attorney General's Office (AGO) in Jakarta on Feb. 25, 2025. (Antara Foto/Rivan Awal Lingga)
P
ertamina president director Simon Aloysius Mantiri has made a first public apology for the state-owned oil and gas giant’s graft-ridden import scandal, as he promised to clean up the company and allow third-party product quality testing in a bid to restore public trust.
“I would like to express my deepest apologies to the Indonesian public for the events that have occurred in the last few days. [What happened] has hit all of us hard and has saddened us, and it is certainly one of the biggest tests Pertamina [has] ever faced,” said Simon, a member of President Prabowo Subianto’s Gerindra Party, during a press conference on Monday.
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has throughout the past week named nine suspects for alleged involvement in an embezzlement scheme that is estimated to have cost the state Rp 193.7 trillion (US$11.9 billion) in losses. Six of the suspects are higher-ups in three Pertamina subsidiaries, while the remaining are from two private oil and gas companies.
The suspects allegedly manipulated Pertamina’s oil import and export deals from 2018 to 2023 by reducing refinery output to force imports through rigged tenders with inflated prices, as well as procuring lower-octane subsidized gasoline to be sold fraudulently as a more expensive brand.
Simon went on to say during the press conference that Pertamina was ready to cooperate with AGO investigators in the probe.
On Monday, the office of the assistant attorney general for extraordinary crimes (Jampidsus) interrogated a Pertamina manager and two other higher-ups from the company’s subsidiaries as witnesses. The office also investigated seven suspects as witnesses for two other suspects.
Read also: AGO names suspects in Pertamina fuel import scandal
