Freeport pledges cooperation with Indonesian govt probe: Report
Thursday, February 9 2006 - 05:43 AM WIB
"We will work cooperatively with the governmental authorities seeking information about our operations, as we have always done in the past," William L. Collier, Freeport-McMoRan's vice president of communications, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Collier didn't elaborate on the government probes or the nature of its cooperation with investigators.
Indonesia's Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, said Wednesday that the government will "very soon" form a special interdepartmental investigative team to probe complaints about Freeport-McMoRan's operations at its massive Grasberg mine in remote Papua province.
Purnomo said the team will focus on a report about Freeport-McMoRan prepared by Amien Rais, the former chairman of the National Mandate Party, or PAN, which holds 52 seats in Indonesia's 550-seat House of Representatives. He didn't elaborate on the substance of that report.
Rais' involvement reflects the widening fallout from a December New York Times report that Freeport-McMoRan allegedly made payments of nearly $20 million to military and police officials posted around Grasberg from 1998 to 2004.
Similar allegations were also made by London-based environmental watchdog Global Witness' "Paying for Protection" report in July 2005.
The allegations prompted Indonesia's defense minister last month to call for both a probe of Freeport-McMoRan's military payments and the issuance of specific guidelines for private firms that need the Indonesian military to provide security services in remote areas.
In January, the allegations prompted the comptroller of New York City, representing shareholders of city pension funds, to ask both the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to probe the legality of Freeport's financial support for security forces in Papua.
Freeport-McMoRan has said it gave "financial support" to Indonesian security officials in Papua for items including infrastructure and logistics, according to a letter by the company's chief executive, Richard Adkerson, posted Jan. 11 on the company Web site.
Collier last week declined a Dow Jones Newswires request for clarification on the payments, saying he wouldn't comment beyond the company's public disclosure. (*)