Minister calls on BPMIGAS to improve its performance
Monday, July 16 2012 - 10:29 AM WIB
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Jero Wacik on Monday called on upstream authority BPMIGAS to improve its performance in order to address the concerns of some members of the public who have called for the dissolution of the agency.
?Don?t provide reasons (for the public) to criticize BPMIGAS. We have to improve (ourselves). It is not easy to dissolve BPMIGAS,? Jero said in his speech during the function to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of BPMIGAS at Ritz Carlton hotel in Jakarta.
Jero made the statement at the time the House of Representatives is formulating plans to assign greater power to BPMIGAS as part of the amendment of Oil and Gas Law No. 22/2001. Under the plan, the House is planning to turn BPMIGAS into a more powerful agency, transferring some rights now held by the ministry. The House also plans to allow BPMIGAS to do the business of selling the government?s oil and gas shares and importing oil and gas to meet the domestic needs by itself ? a multi billion dollar business now controlled by state owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina.
Some analysts have called for the dissolution of BPMIGAS, while calling for the strengthening of Pertamina.
Editing by Johannes Simbolon