Pertamina president: I'm ready to be replaced

The president of state oil and gas company Pertamina, Baihaki Hakim, said that he was ready to be replaced if President Abdurrahman Wahid wants to do so because of his inability to improve Pertamina's performance as the President wanted.

"I'm ready to be replaced if the government wants it," Baihaki was quoted by Pertamina spokesman Toto Soeparto as saying.

However, Toto expressed his disagreement if Baihaki was replaced now while the state oil company was undergoing a restructuring program.

Sources in the state palace and Pertamina said that because of the recent fuel scarcity problems, Baihaki would soon to be replaced soon by Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, currently president of state electricity company PT PLN.

Besides Baihaki, according to the sources, five Pertamina directors would also be replaced, and the structure of Pertamina's board of directors after the replacement would be different from the current one.

Commenting on the rumors about the planned replacement of Baihaki, a number of legislators, including Irwan Prayitno of the reform party faction and Pramono Anung of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle faction, expressed their disagreement.

Irwan said that the planned replacement of Baihaki could set a bad precedence in the state oil firm because Baihaki had only been with the company for five month. He suspected that if Baihaki would then be replaced, it would only confirmed that the recent fuel scarcity problem was well planned to topple Baihaki.

Pramono said that the planned removal of Baihaki only shows that the government had no planning for state firms, especially for Pertamina. He also suspects political interests to be behind the planned replacement. (*)