Ministry senior official fails to appear at KPK for questioning

Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Bambang Gatot Ariyono failed to appear at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Monday for questioning as a witness to Samin Tan, founding owner of IDX-listed coking coal firm PT Borneo Lombung Energi & Metal Tbk, who has been named as a suspect in a bribery case.

News portal bisnis.com quoted KPK Spokesman Febri Diansyah as saying that the commission has yet to obtain information as to why Bambang failed to appear for the questioning.

As has been previously reported, Samin has been accused of giving bribe money totaling Rp 5 billion in June of last year to Eni Saragih, then deputy chairwoman of the House of Representatives Commission VII on energy and mining.

The bribe was given to Eni for her efforts to reverse a Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources’ decision of terminating the coal mining contract of Borneo’s subsidiary PT Asmin Koalindo Tuhup (AKT).

Eni, a Golkar party member, has been convicted in a separate bribery case related to the development of a coal-fired power plant project in Riau Province.  She was sentenced to a six-year jail in early March.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resource in October of 2017 terminated the coal mining contract of work (PKP2B) of AKT. The ministry said that AKT has breached the contract because it had signed an agreement to provide guarantee on a loan facility provided by Standard Chartered Bank to its parent PT Borneo Lumbung Energi & Metal Tbk. The signing of the corporate guarantee was made without written approval from the minister, which is considered as a breach of the PKP2B coal contract of work. (*)