Palembang businessmen stage protest against Pertamina

At least 40 local suppliers of Pertamina?s office in Plaju, Palembang staged a demonstration against the company?s management on Friday demanding the state owned oil and gas company?s local management to give an equal treatment to them.

The suppliers said during the protest that Pertamina had preferred to deal with large companies in the procurement of goods and services to support its operation.

"How could a company like Pertamina discriminate local supplies mostly comprising of small scale companies against big players,? Palembang Post quoted the protesters.

According to the protesters, Pertamina?s pricing policy in the procurement of goods and services only benefited large-scale companies. With such a policy, almost all the goods which were previously provided by the local suppliers were now obtained from large companies.

One of the suppliers said that with such a pricing agreement, companies which meet the requirement to supply goods and services to Pertamina comprised only of large-scale companies mostly coming from outside of Plaju. (*)