Djayanti Group accused of misusing cheap diesel oil

The Djayanti business group has been accused of misusing the heavily subsidized diesel oil in its fishery operation in Irian Jaya, Kompas daily reported on Friday, quoting a senior official at the state oil and gas company Pertamina.

Pertamina's integrated team for the prevention of fuel misuse said on Thursday that the misuse of the heavily subsidized diesel oil by the business group in the last eight months had caused a loss to some Rp 23.2 billion (US$1=Rp 9,400) to the state.

The head of the team Slamet Singgih said that based on the team's investigation, the business group had transferred a part of the diesel oil allocated for its logging and wood-based industries in Irian Jaya to its fishery operation.

The deviation of the diesel oil allocation had caused a heavy loss to the state because the big difference in the prices of the fuel products sold for export-oriented activities such as Djayanti's fishery operation and those sold to other industrial users such as logging and other wood-based activities.

Slamet said with the deviation of the diesel oil supply, the Djayanti's business group only paid the diesel oil at a half price. According to Pertamina's recent decision, the price of the diesel oil sold to export-oriented companies is set Rp 1,200 per litter, much higher than Rp 600 set other industries.

Hadi Budoyo, a director of the Dyayanti Group said on Wednesday that the doubled diesel oil price for his group was entirely discriminative. According to him, many export-oriented companies in the province had been spared from the discriminative diesel oil pricing policy.

Hadi also defended the transfer of some part of the diesel oil from the business group's wood industries to the fishery division as being normal. "We transferred some of the surplus in the diesel oil supply in wood industries to the fishery operation because the later was in urgent need," he said. (*)