Word: pertamina
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Foreign confidence was shaken by the disastrous financial crisis undergone two years ago by the country's national oil company, Pertamina. Afflicted by gross mismanagement and blatant corruption, the company could not repay several billion dollars in loan obligations and had to be bailed out by the government. To help raise the money, the government assessed Caltex-producer of 63% of Indonesian oil-an extra $1 per bbl. in royalties and arbitrarily cut the earnings of other foreign oil companies by about $2.50 per bbl. Admits Indonesian Minister of Mining Affairs...
Mohammad Sadli: "We recognize that confidence was broken when we altered the contracts in a unilateral way." While some companies have expressed interest in renewing exploration, experts agree that the government will have a hard time returning the search for oil to the same fever pitch as before the Pertamina scandal...
High Grades. The bribery and bureaucratic malfeasance that nearly drove Pertamina under is far from rare in Indonesia. Says a Jakarta schoolteacher who is accustomed to rewarding the children of officers and bureaucrats with high grades in return for gifts from their fathers: "If you can get into the government, you can get rich." Unless they pay off, merchants find it all but impossible to get papers signed, exports loaded aboard ships or vital spare parts released from customs sheds. "The official just sits behind his desk and opens up a drawer," says the regional manager of an American company...
...Discounts. In 1969 Ibnu Sutowo decided to add a Manhattan restaurant to his collection of personally owned enterprises. So, says the SEC, he wrote on Pertamina stationery to scores of U.S. companies, asking them to buy stock in the venture. He made no threats, but took care to say that the companies were selected because they did business with Pertamina. Eventually he collected $1.1 million from 54 individuals and companies, including Mobil Oil, Union Oil, Cities Service and Atlantic Richfield...
...seeks an injunction barring further sales of stock in the Ramayana. Its action comes a bit late: Sutowo, 62, seems to have no need of further capital. Although he was fired by Pertamina last year after it ran up debts and losses of perhaps $10 billion, he remains one of the richest men in Indonesia. His restaurant partners have not been as lucky. They still own stock in the Ramayana, but the shares have never paid dividends-and oilmen get no discounts on their rijsttafel...