Bukaka rejects government's proposal to withdraw lawsuit against PLN

Local construction and engineering firm PT Bukaka Teknik Utama has rejected the government's proposal for it to withdraw its lawsuit against state electricity company PT PLN and settle their dispute over the power transmission project out of the court, Bisnis Indonesia daily reported Monday.

Bukaka filed the lawsuit against PLN last year following the latter's move, at the request of the government, to cancel the former's contract for the construction of the high voltage transmission station and network linking Klaten in Central Java and Tasikmalaya in West Java.

PLN then held a bidding for the contract, which was won by Austrian firm Asea Brown Bovery (ABB).

"The litigation process in the court will continue, because we have won the case in the district court and the appeal level. We are confident that we will win this case in the Supreme Court as well," Buakaka president and chief operating officer Achmad Kalla said over the weekend.

Moreover, he said, the government and PLN had not yet given their official opinion over the cancellation of Bukaka's project, and therefore, there was no point for Bukaka to withdraw its lawsuit.

"Not even a talk. I have asked a time for a meeting with the minister of energy and mineral resources. But up to now, it is not yet materialized," he said.

In principle, Achmad Kalla said his company would welcome the government's initiative to settle their dispute out of the court. If the government was really serious to settle the matter out of the court, Achmad said, they must sit together and discuss it.

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro earlier said the government had suggested Bukaka and PLN solve their dispute out of court so that the construction of the transmission station, locally known as "gitet", and the transmission line could be completed on time and PLN would be able to transmit power from East Java to West Java in 2004 at the latest.

Purnomo said that under the initial plan, the Klaten-Tasikmalaya transmission station and network should have been completed in year 2002.

Without such facilities, PLN is unable to tranmist power from power stations in East Java to West Java.

The construction of the Klaten-Tasikmalaya transmission facilities had been stalled as ABB refused to start its works until there is a final court ruling on the Bukaka-PLN dispute. (*)