Jakarta(VNA) - Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on September 10named a former managing director of the trading arm of state-owned energycompany PT Pertamina as a suspect in a graft case linked to oil trading with aSingapore-based company.
After nearly fiveyears investigating what authorities have described as an “oil and gas mafia”,the agency charged Bambang Irianto, former managing director of PertaminaEnergy Service Pte. Ltd. (PES), with receiving bribes from Singapore-basedKernel Oil Pte. Ltd. to secure oil trading deals.
Speaking at a newsconference, KPK Vice Chairman Laode Syarif said that Irianto had received atleast 2.9 million USD between 2010 and 2013 “for the help he provided to KernelOil related to trade of refined oil and crude with PES”.
Irianto, who couldnot immediately be reached for comment, could face a maximum sentence of 20years in jail and a 1 billion rupiah (71,200 USD) fine if found guilty in aspecial anti-corruption court.
Syarif said thebribes were channeled through a shell company Irianto set up in the tax havenof the British Virgin Islands.
Kernel Oil had usedthe Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) as a vehicle to circumvent rules thatforced PES to prioritise a national oil company in a tender, he said.
“ENOC is an oilcompany, but it was not its oil that PES bought, it was Kernel’s oil. So it wasusing ENOC’s flag,” Syarif said.
Pertamina’sspokeswoman Fajriyah Usman said the company “respects the legal case that isunderway and the legal principle of the presumption of innocence”.
Pertamina dismantledits trading arm Petral - the parent company of PES - in 2015 under the order ofPresident Joko Widodo. Irianto was also Petral’s chief executive until thecompany was scrapped.
Widodo had madecleaning up Indonesia’s oil and gas sector a priority when he won thepresidency in 2014, hoping it would improve the investment climate in SoutheastAsia’s largest economy./.
VNA