(08/16/2007)
JAKARTA - Who and how someone gets the top seat at state-owned enterprises should be under the public's nose if the inclusion of them in the public information law is to help squash their status as political cash cows.

The placement of someone at the top post is the door to using the enterprises as money dispenser, former lawmaker Sukowaluyo Mintorahardjo said Tuesday in a discussion.

He should know. He was head of the House of Representatives commission on state-owned enterprises and in the circle of the administration when former president Megawati Soekarnoputri was in office.

"There's sort of a contract that says how much will they give back to the sponsors if they get the post," Sukowaluyo said.

It is still a running practice, he added, and will preserve so long as the recruitment process remains fully closed behind the walls of the state palace.

There are 158 enterprises in which the state owns at least 51 percent of shares.

Andreas Pareira, member of House Commission I on information, defense and foreign affairs, concurred and the government's reluctance to deliberate the issue was to make fools out of the public.

"Their excuse is that a closed recruitment process at the enterprises is a matter of economic regime, while we know that the decision making there is politically intervened," he said.

The process should be required to be out in the open, they said.

"The candidates and their affiliations must be announced, anyone can apply and there's a fit and proper test,'" said Sukowaluyo.

The house and the government are tensely deliberating a bill on access to public information, with the inclusion of state-owned enterprises still being argued.

The government says the enterprises' business interests must be protected, while the house insists all agencies with state money should be subject to public scrutiny.

A few things to be looked into in drafting the law, the discussion noted, were how much information should be publicly available and the work of the enterprises as profit seeker.

Public are undefined, said Sukowaluyo, and unrestricted access might instead result in massive misuse and even greater corruption.

A suggestion by the Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information (ISAI) lists several types of information, including goods and service procurement, management and financial reports, corporate actions, tariff formulation, use of tactical funds and remuneration.

Information about property rights and business plans that has yet to be officially decided should be excluded to protect the efforts to seek profit, it said.

Audit by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), the discussion underlined, was an important piece but the fact that most of BPK's reports go straight to the shelves served as a pushing factor for why the enterprises must be included in the law.

The deliberation of the law has used up almost two years and is still at the phase of trying to work out hundreds of troubled points in the bill.

Aside from the inclusion of state-owned enterprises, the bill is also raising controversy regarding information on intelligence and how state secrets should be interpreted. (JP/PAB)