PLN denies news report OPIC gives deadline
Monday, July 10 2000 - 03:30 AM WIB
State electricity firm PT PLN denied a news report that Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) had given a deadline for the PLN and the Indonesian government in settling its debt to the U.S. federal insurance firm.
PLN president Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said OPIC executives were now in Jakarta, and they never mentioned a deadline in their negotiations with PLN and the government.
"There is no deadline. How do you know there is a deadline? Everything goes fine," he said. "In that negotiation, we did not talk about schedule nor deadline."
OPIC actually asked the Indonesian government last March to pay US$290 in compensation claim that it had paid to California Energy/Mid American Energy Holding.
An international arbitration ordered PLN and the government to pay $290 million to the two U.S. energy investors for the former's decision to cancel the latter's energy projects in Indonesia, Patuha and Dieng.
As the government and PLN did not have the money to pay, OPIC - as a federal insurance firm that guarantees U.S. investment overseas - paid the compensation. (*)