recording of a conversation allegedly involving State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno and PLN president director Sofyan Basyir has been circulating on the internet.
In it, a discussion on stock shares between PLN and state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina takes place, in which Sofyan tells Rini that he wants a bigger share.
The recording was uploaded by Instagram account @jokerpolitik on Friday with the caption, “Finally the plot is revealed”. The post was taken down on Sunday.
Tri Sasono, the general secretary of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Workers Federation, demanded that the National Police immediately arrest the uploader of the recording, arguing its circulation harmed the government.
“The edited recording was intentionally modified to discredit the SOE minister,” he said in a press release on Saturday.
Tri said the conversation between Rini and Sofyan was not a plot for them to benefit personally from the state project and that, instead, it was about PLN's and Pertamina’s intention to cooperate with a private enterprise on an energy-related project in Serang regency, Banten.
The minister and Sofyan were coordinating to make SOEs the majority shareholder of the project, because the plan was to cooperate with Japanese gas company Mitsui, Tri said, adding that the conversation happened in 2016.
The said project, however, had not materialized, State-Owned Enterprises Ministry secretary Imam Apriyanto Putro said.
In his written release on Saturday, Imam said the circulated recording was edited and cut to damage the reputation of those in it.
“The complete conversation shows that the discussion was in accordance with the minister’s task to ensure that all SOEs are run based on good corporate governance,” Imam said. (gis/evi)
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