Total accused of deviating from regulation in arranging tender process
Tuesday, May 8 2001 - 04:30 AM WIB
The East Kalimantan entrepreneurs grouping LPWI accused oil and gas company TotalFinaElf of deviating from the Presidential Decree No.18/2000 and decree of the state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina in arranging bidding process for service works at the company, the local Kaltim Post daily reported.
"Many LPWI members have complained about this and we have sent a (protest) letter to Total on April 27," LPWI chairman Andi Syariffudin said.
The paper said that Total had required bidders to have bank guarantee or insurance guarantee for projects worth between Rp 200 million and Rp 5 billion. It said that the bank guarantee must come commercial banks, while insurance guarantee must come from certain insurance firms, which have surety bond program, such as PT Jasindo, PT Asuransi Allianz Utama Indonesia, PT Asuransi Kredit Indonesia, PT Jasa Rahardja Putera and PT Asuransi Central Asia.
The paper added that for projects worth more than Rp 5 billion, there must be a bank guarantee coming from either state-owned banks, or foreign banks.
Andi said that this requirement was a deviation from the existing government regulation, which does not discriminate the guarantee issued by banks and insurance firms based on the size of the project. He said that the requirement set by Total inhibited local businesses to win projects from Total.(*)