Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan Calls Out Tom Lembong's Intelligence on Nickel Prices: "Your Intellect is Questionable"

Verda Nano Setiawan, CNBC Indonesia

Thursday, 01/25/2024 10:50 WIB

Photo: Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan at the Marine Spatial Planning and Expo Service 2023. (Screenshot from Youtube of the Indonesian Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment)

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marinves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan gave a strong response to Thomas Lembong or Tom Lembong. This is related to providing information on nickel prices.

Luhut then doubted the intelligence of Tom Lembong, who is currently the Co-Captain of the National Team for Presidential Candidate and Vice Presidential Candidate Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar (AMIN). The reason is that Tom Lembong is considered to have provided false information to Vice President AMIN regarding the falling nickel price.

According to Luhut, Tom Lembong should be able to see long-term data, especially as commodity prices fluctuate. Including nickel commodities, prices are currently increasing.

For nickel, if you look at the last 10 years, the world nickel price has been around US$ 15 thousand per ton. This figure has increased since 2014-2019, the period when the Indonesian government started downstreaming, the average price of nickel at that time was only US$ 12 thousand per ton.

“So I don’t understand how Tom Lembong gave a statement like the way you gave it advice “lying to the leadership candidate that you support, I was sad to see you there, which means that in my opinion your intellect is questionable,” said Luhut in a post on Instagram @luhut.pandjaitan, quoted Thursday (25/1/2024).

Luhut admitted that Tom Lembong was an intellectual, but his character was considered not good. Even what Tom Lembong did received comments from his grandson.

Luhut’s grandson questioned how it was possible for Tom Lembong, who is a former minister, to now be vilifying his own government.

“How come opung, there is a former minister who talks bad about his own government even though he worked there a long time ago. What kind of personality is this opung? He said that,” he said.

Previously, Tom Lembong revealed that the downstream process carried out in Indonesia was like a ‘Weapon to Eat Your Lord’ which ended up being detrimental to Indonesia itself.

“What we are against is the downstreaming that Pak Muhaimin mentioned earlier, which is reckless. It ends up being ridiculous because it backfires, sir, because you are so aggressive in boosting nickel smelters, then flooding the world with nickel supplies until the price drops,” said Tom in the Your Money Your program. CNBC Indonesia Vote, quoted Wednesday (24/1/2024).

However, he said that the downstream program was still the vision and mission of the AMIN candidate pair. In this way, Tom Lembong stated that his party is not against downstreaming, but that this will be done without being careless.

“So what Pak Muhaimin said is absolutely correct, we are victims of policies that we made ourselves. We are not at all anti-downstreaming, downstreaming is in Anies-Muhaimin’s vision and mission too,” he added.

Watch the video below: