The government is facing difficulties in claiming assets worth about Rp 2.14 trillion (US$237.54 million) formerly owned by the now defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), and which are now being kept at a custodian bank.
The treasury director general at the Finance Ministry, Herry Purnomo, said in Jakarta on Tuesday that his office had been ordered by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to claim the assets but could not do so because of a lack of documentation.
"We found ex-IBRA assets worth Rp 2.14 trillion in the form of commercial papers in 2009 but those assets could not be claimed because we did not have any supporting documents to get them," he said.
Herry said the BPK had asked his office to trace the status and the owners of the commercial papers before they were taken over by the IBRA from financially troubled banks.
"We are now still tracing the status of the commercial papers," he told a press conference at a seminar.
The IBRA was established in 1998 to restructure the national banking system following an economic crisis that caused several of the country's banks to fail. One of the agency's tasks was to manage the distressed assets seized from financially troubled banks.
In February, 2004, the IBRA was shut down and handed over all of its assets and documentation to the Finance Ministry.
Referring to a former IBRA document dated 1999, Herry said that 5,765 commercial papers worth Rp 2.14 trillion were now at a custodian bank.
"If I'm not mistaken, their custodian is Citibank," he said.
The Finance Ministry is also searching for documents that trace former IBRA assets.
"We are doing it as recommended by the BPK," Herry said, but declined to offer information about the recovered assets.
The state assets formerly under the control of the IBRA were handed over to asset management firm PT PPA following the closure of the IBRA in 2004.
The Finance Ministry said that former IBRA assets had been divided into two categories: Troubled and non-troubled.
The non-troubled assets were transferred to PT PPA to be sold, and the troubled assets were transferred to a special settlement team under the Finance Ministry.
"The former IBRA assets that are not problematic are now managed by PPA, and the rest by the settlement team," Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said.
Based on a recently published government financial report, the total revenue obtained from the sales and restructuring of the troubled assets seized from failing banks was Rp 690 billion in 2009, comprising Rp 435.58 billion from restructuring, Rp 148.56 billion from former IBRA assets and Rp 106.19 billion from bank liquidations.
The revenue was far below the previous year's total revenue of Rp 2.9 trillion, consisting of Rp 665 billion from restructuring, Rp 692.13 billion in former IBRA assets and Rp 1.46 trillion from bank liquidations. (ebf)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/28/govt-struggling-claim-former-ibra-assets-worth-rp-214t.html
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