Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The issue of ‘zombie’ state-owned companies or ghost SOEs aka state-owned companies that have had problems for years, then not operate, continues to be a public concern.
Finally, in the Working Meeting of the Ministry of SOEs with Commission VI of the Indonesian House of Representatives last Wednesday (22/9), the fate of these companies was also discussed.
Even Darmadi Durianto, Member of Commission VI of the DPR RI from the PDI-P Faction to the Minister of SOEs Erick Thohir questioned why it was difficult for SOE Minister Erick Thohir to close the SOEs in question.
“There are seven ghosts that are often talked about, haven’t been liquidated for a long time. Please, Mr. Minister, can you tell us where the problem really is,” said Darmadi, Wednesday (22/9/2021).
According to him, these efforts seem slow, even though these companies have no business prospects.
“In ordinary companies, we will immediately liquidate it when it gets worse, there are no prospects. But this seems slow, is there a problem which is the most crucial,” he said.
Responding to this, Erick admitted that it is currently very difficult for the ministry to intervene in an effort to close or assist the company restructuring process.
For this reason, he asked the DPR to give the ministry a bigger role in managing state-owned companies, especially in terms of closing and restructuring companies. This was proposed in line with the ongoing discussion on amendments to Law No. 19 of 2003 concerning BUMN.
“But in the context that we were given the opportunity with Commission VI to be able to close or restructure, after all, we are together to oversee this, which I think in the plan for the BUMN Law, we need to get more emphasis and power for us to do it,” Erick said on the same occasion.
“Not only to increase strength. But this is where the emphasis was, none other than, we are also a good pressure for our directors,” he continued.
Erick said that this request was submitted after evaluating the conditions that had occurred in BUMN before and the causes, ranging from the company’s accumulated debt to the company’s operations that were not optimal.
“So we are very grateful when the plan for the BUMN Law is opened and that is one of the things we hope for our role together,” he said.
He said that currently it is still very difficult for the ministry to close many companies, even though these companies have not been operating since at least 2008. It is hoped that this law will be able to accelerate the closure of companies and the settlement of obligations to employees.
Meanwhile, for the restructuring of SOEs, he assessed that the existing mechanism was very long and would take nine months. In fact, according to him, with everything that is currently fast-paced, an acceleration is needed in completing the company’s finances.
“How was the question from the members of the council, why did it take so long to restructure. It took us 9 months to restructure, which is of course in the current era of digitalization like this, where the dynamics of doing business are accelerating tremendously,” he said.
NEXT: Who are the ‘Zombie’ SOEs?
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