House to probe satellite fiasco

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives has established a working committee to investigate the government's failure to extend the operational license for an Indonesian satellite and examine the unregulated issuance of frequency permits for radio and TV stations.

Both cases, legislators alleged, have caused trillions of rupiah in losses to the state.

Jeffrey Massie, a Prosperous Peace Party legislator, said in a press conference here Monday that the House's Commission I for information, defense and foreign affairs would launch the investigation with a closed-door meeting with Communications and Information Minister M. Nuh and Basuki, director general of post and telecommunications at the communications ministry, on July 2.

"The two government officials must give satisfactory explanations on why the government had forgotten to re-register the slot for Palapa at 150 degrees 30 minutes east longitude, the designated space for the Indonesian satellite, to the International Telecommunications Union," he said.

The inquiry was initiated following Basuki's confession at a hearing with the commission last week that the government had neglected to re-register the slot for Palapa. Basuki admitted that potential state losses from the blunder could come to around US$7 billion.

The Palapa C-4 satellite, which was placed into geostationary orbit some 36,000 kilometers above the equator in 1996, is operated by state-owned firm PT Indosat.

The permit for the orbital slot should have been renewed by the government upon its expiration in May 2006.

Accompanying Jeffrey at the press conference, legislator Effendy Choirie of the National Awakening Party faction said the working committee aimed to discern whether government negligence was to blame for the failure to renew the orbital slot, or a conspiracy "among certain parties" to ensure the integrated defense system satellite was a catastrophe.

"The government should reveal the losses the state is suffering from the (satellite) case and find out whether Singapore's Temasek, which owns the majority of shares in Indosat, was involved in (the conspiracy)," he said.

In a previous hearing, the commission pushed the government to repurchase or nationalize Temasek's shares in Indosat citing national interests, especially those in the defense sector.

Jeffrey said the working committee would also investigate the issuance of frequency permits for radio and television stations, which the commission alleged had returned insufficient revenue to the state.

"According to reliable sources, a private TV station pays only Rp 600 million (US$66,445) for a frequency permit, while the TV station has grabbed more than Rp 2 trillion in annual profit from its advertisements," Jeffrey said, adding that frequency permits required regulation with fixed tariffs that were equally applicable to every station.