Boediono, Mulyani keep jobs, for now: President

Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 03/23/2010 9:15 AM

The President’s office announced that the Vice President and finance minister will keep their jobs for now, pending the findings of an investigation into the controversial Bank Century bailout.

The President thus ignored earlier calls from lawmakers to suspend state officials involved in the bailout decision during the legal process. The investigation is among proposals from the parliament made after over two months of probing into the case.

However the government has agreed on the House of Representatives' recommendation to have law enforcers question state officials involved in the US$716 million bailout.

Conveying President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s decision, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto did not provide names, but Vice President Boediono and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati are widely known to have ordered the bailout.

“According to regulations, state officials can only be temporarily suspended after they are granted defendant status. They can be discharged if they are convicted," Djoko said at the presidential office Monday.

He had attended a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudho-yono, who had asked ministers and other related officials for their input on the House recommendations.

Political observers have raised concerns over the possibility of Boediono and Mulyani leaving the government, which has been besieged by controversy throughout its first six months, the latest being the Century inquiry by the House.

Having failed to prove an illegal flow of bailout funds for what lawmakers initially accused of going to election campaigners for the incumbent President, the House inquiry shifted to whether the decision to spend the ballooning state funds on the bailout was right.

Boediono, then governor of central bank Bank Indonesia, and Mulyani, approved the disbursement of Rp 6.76 trillion to the then ailing bank in 2008, reasoning it posed a systemic threat to the banking sector amid the financial crisis.

Djoko said Yudhoyono had sent copies of the recommendations to the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office.

The House’s letter on the Century case sent earlier this month to Yudhoyono, Djoko said, contained five recommendations.

Apart from letting the law take its course, as stated in one recommendation, he said the government agreed, together with the House, to revise current monetary and fiscal regulations; and to recover state assets lost in the Century bailout.

Two other recommendations were that a House team would oversee implementation of the recommendations; and that the state should cover losses of bank customers investing with a securities firm related to the bank.

Attorney General Hendarman Supandji said a team comprising his office, the police and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center had frozen Rp 3 trillion of Bank Century funds allegedly embezzled by former bank owners.

The funds do not amount to Rp 12 trillion, as mentioned by former police chief detective Susno Duadji, and are saved in their accounts across 12 countries, he said.