Dutch state buys stake in Air France-KLM to ‘increase influence’

DutchNews, February 27, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Dutch state has bought a large minority shareholding in the holding company of Air France-KLM in order to exercise more influence on the company, finance minister Wopke Hoekstra told a news conference on Tuesday evening. 

In total, the Netherlands has bought 12.68% of the company for €680m on the open market, but plans to raise this to 14% – in line with the stake held by the French government. 

The aim, Hoekstra says, is to better guarantee Dutch public interests. ‘The position of Schiphol and KLM are of great importance to the Dutch economy and employment,’ he said. ‘It involves thousands of direct and indirect jobs.’ 

In addition, KLM’s destination network is one reason so many foreign firms decide to relocate to the Netherlands, he said. 

The Dutch move, which apparently was not shared with the French authorities ahead of time, follows a turbulent period for the company. 

Holding chief Ben Smith is known to be keen to see Air France and KLM unify through common aircraft orders, alliances and flight programmes but the plans have caused unease in the Netherlands. 

‘Over the past few years it has become obvious that important decisions about KLM strategy are being taken at a holding level,’ Hoekstra said on Tuesday evening. ‘At the same time, talks about strengthening existing agreements… and the make-up of the board, have been difficult.’ 

KLM also reports better financial results compared to Air France, which has been hit by strikes, even though it is much smaller. 

France 

French economic affairs minister Bruno Le Maire told Les Echoes that the shares had been bought up without prior knowledge of the Air France-KLM board or the French government.

The French government has a 14.3% stake in the holding, which was created in 2003 when the two airlines merged. The Dutch state retains a 5.9% stake in KLM itself. 

‘The big question is, what will you achieve with this,’ aviation economist Eric Pels told broadcaster NOS. ‘It cost a lot of money, you don’t have a majority and you can’t sit in the chief executive’s seat. Operational decisions, the day to day affairs, are not taken together with shareholders.’

Wopke Hoekstra and Bruno Le Maire answer questions . Photo: AP Photo/

Christophe Ena via HH

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Fasten your seatbelts and expect severe turbulence! France warns that the Dutch government's purchase of a major stake in Air France-KLM "benefits nobody"https://t.co/ncLzBsAzow pic.twitter.com/fDBBRxGK3z

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 28, 2019

Missing jet reveals uncomfortable Malaysian truths

Associated Press, Chris Brummit, 17 March 2014

Malaysia's acting Transport Minister
 Hishamuddin Hussein looks on a map of a
 search corridor during a press conference at
 a hotel near the Kuala Lumpur International
Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia, Monday,
March 17, 2014. Twenty-six countries are
involved in the massive international search
for the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that
disappeared on March 8 with 239 people
aboard. They include not just military assets
on land, at sea and in the air, but also
investigators and the specific support and
assistance requested by Malaysia, such as
radar and satellite information. (AP Photo/
Vincent Thian)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - It's apparently a challenge to find people satisfied with the Malaysian government's performance in its search for Flight 370: A mainstream daily newspaper here ran a story Monday on praise being lavished by an anonymous Facebook user from Sweden.

The mysterious disappearance of a Boeing 777 with 239 people aboard would test any government, but Malaysia's is particularly strained because its elite are accustomed to getting an easy ride. Decades in power and a pliant media have cushioned them from scrutiny.

Its civilian and military leaders have struggled to provide answers from Day One of the crisis, when it took several hours to even declare the plane missing. They said early on that the plane may have doubled back, but took days to say it was military radar that suggested that and days more to confirm it.

In response to criticism, government officials have repeatedly said they must wait to confirm information before they can release it. But that has not prevented them from making mistakes.

On Monday, the defense minister said police visited the homes of the jet's two pilots soon after the March 8 disappearance, contradicting the country's police chief, who had said officers did not go there until a week later. The minister also raised doubts about earlier reports from Malaysian officials that a key data communications system had been turned off before the cockpit spoke to air-traffic controllers - a detail that has increased speculation that the pilots were responsible.

China, where most of the passengers are from, has been especially dismayed that it took a week for Malaysia to come up with details on the plane's possible location. The official Xinhua News Agency said the delay "smacks of either dereliction of duty or reluctance to share information."

Passengers' relatives, holed up in hotels in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing and desperate for word, have picked up on rumors and false leads in the media before the government has, adding to their anguish.

Asked on Monday by a foreign reporter about the criticism, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said it was baseless. "I have got a lot of feedback saying we have been very responsible in our actions," said Hishammuddin, the main face of the government's response to the crisis. "It's very irresponsible of you to say that."

The disappearance of the jet touches on issues that officials normally wouldn't discuss publicly. The incident now appears certain to be a security failure at some level of the government, and has raised questions about the national airline and the defense readiness of the air force, which was unable to quickly spot a jetliner in Malaysian airspace and off its flight path. The possibility of Islamist militant involvement is also highly sensitive in the multiethnic country.

"In Malaysian political culture, they are not used to answering questions straight and honestly," said Bridget Welsh, a political scientist from the Singapore Management University. "They are used to 'government knows best for government,' and have been very slow in realizing this is not a Malaysia crisis - this has global effects."

Malaysia has enjoyed rapid economic growth since it gained independence from Britain more than half a century ago. Although nominally a democracy, the same ruling coalition has been in power for more than five decades, helped by gerrymandering and affirmative action policies that have won the support of the ethnic Malay majority.

But in recent years the government's grip on power has weakened; the ruling coalition didn't win the popular vote for the first time in elections last year, though it managed to hold on to power. The plane disappeared the morning after a court convicted opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy, a verdict widely seen as politically motivated. It has since emerged that the pilot was a supporter of Anwar, though that has not been widely reported in government media.

Greg Barton, a Southeast Asia expert at Australia's Monash University, said the country has a tradition of distrusting the West, a "third worldism" political philosophy that was a legacy of the pugnacious rule of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir.

"There is a natural instinct not to ask for too much Western help," he said. "It's made it hard for the government to move quickly."

Malaysian officials have said they are working with foreign experts and countries, including the sharing of sensitive radar and satellite data.

Apart from online news portals, the print and television media in Malaysia are unabashedly pro-government.

"Stop bashing SAR (search and rescue) efforts, says Swede FB user," read the headline in the mass circulation New Straits Times, which went on to quote at length from the Facebook page of the anonymous Swede defending the government.

"Can you imagine the burden they (the government) carry on their shoulders and how much precaution they have to take before announcing anything?" the Swede was quoted as posting on his account. "No. Because you are not in their shoes."

The government said soon after the jet disappeared that there were indications it might have turned back from its last known position over the South China Sea after it stopped communicating with the ground, but didn't fully explain why. It took a week for it to confirm that military radar data had confirmed the plane had flown over the country and then north toward the Indian Ocean.

"There is a bit of haziness there," said Ibrahim Suffian, the head of the Merdeka Center, a Malaysian political research institute.

Like several others, Ibrahim said he thought the government's media management had improved in recent days, perhaps because they had contracted a crisis management company to advise them.

The fact that the air force didn't apparently spot or react to the jet flying across its airspace has brought the military unusual scrutiny. Some aviation analysts have said authorities were slow in tracing the plane, in shifting the search area from the South China Sea, and in investigating the pilots' background. Suspicion has fallen on the pilots, although Malaysian officials have said they are looking into everyone aboard the flight.

"I think they were a bit tardy in getting onto it," said aviation expert Tom Ballantyne. "It may be the pilot was very experienced, he was obviously highly respected, perhaps they thought it was out of the question (that he might be involved.) Certainly, his home and that of the co-pilot should have been part of the initial investigation."

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Lawmaker Involved in Another Plane Seat Incident

Jakarta Globe, March 26, 2011

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Indonesian Twitter users woke up on Satuday to an early morning plane seat mix-up incident that ended with lawmaker Roy Suryo being asked to leave a Lion Air flight.

Twitter user @ernestprakasa said he boarded the 6:15 a.m. flight to Yogyakarta with his friend only to find their seats occupied by the Democrat Party lawmaker and his wife.

“When it was checked, it turned out that Roy Suryo's tickets were for the 7:45 flight, instead of 6.15 a.m. but he refused to leave the plane, dropping the name of Lion Air's director,” Ernest wrote.

Ernest said he and his friend decided to just leave the plane, but suddenly some of the other passengers shouted, “Don't let officials beat you!” and “Hey, Roy Suryo, don't pull a Nurdin Halid. You must step down now!”

In the midst of the chaos, the pilot, identified only as Capt. Vino, came out to the cabin to ask what was going on because the flight was already 15 minutes late.

After receiving an explanation from a flight attendant, the captain walked into the cockpit, grabbed his bag and angrily walked over to the plane's door, cursing government officials as he did so.

The captain refused to take off if Ernest and his friend were not on the plane.

Shortly after, a group of airport officers approached Roy Suryo, and the lawmaker finally got up and apologized to the passengers.

“I am sorry for having disturbed your flight,” he said, to the applause of the passengers.

After Suryo left, the captain returned to the cockpit and started the take-off procedure.

However, Suryo said he was simply a victim of Lion Air's mistake.

“Tweeps, I was the one who became the bigger man and took the blame for Lion Air's mistake in the double-seat incident. As the people's representative, I know ethics require me to apologize and prioritize others,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

Roy claimed Lion Air has apologized to him for the "miscommunication."

Lion Air refused to comment on the incident, saying they will verify the flight documents first.

Related Article:

The seven months pregnant woman told to give up her British Airways seat... just so Gordon Brown could fly Club Class

E-ticketing for Crossings Transportation to Begin in August

Tempo Interactive, Friday, 30 July, 2010 | 15:49 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:The Transportation Ministry announced that e-ticketing for crossings transportation will be applied again as of next August. The system, intended to reduce the number of ticket scalpers, was halted for a few months due to software damage.

“E-ticketing will definitely reduce the number of scalpers,” said the Traffic and River,Lake, and Crossing Transportation (ASDP) Director Winarno, contacted by Tempo, recently. The system will also improve transportation services, such as a guarantee in getting tickets and punctuality.

Thee-ticketing system was implemented on two crossing lanes, the Merak-Bakauheni and Ketapang-Gilimanuk, on June and August last year, but this was stopped asof May 2010. “There was some technical problem. We had to repair the software first,” said Winarno. Changes in the executive board also slowed down the process.

He said he could not predict how ticket scalpers operated when the e-ticketing system was in effect, and when the system was temporarily stopped. According to Winarno, the state-owned Indonesian Ferry company should know more about thisand hoped it can be implemented again before people go back to their home towns for Lebaran. “We plan to operate this by August,” he said.

Thee-ticketing system at crossings ports is part of PT Indonesia Ferry’s business transformation plan when Bambang Soerjanto still headed the office It was also to ensure transparency in the company’s share of the port’s revenues.

E-ticketing has been applied in the ports of Merak, Banten, and Bakauheni Lampung;Ketapang, East Java, and Gilimanuk, Bali; Padangbai, Bali, and Lembar, West Nusa Tenggara. Indonesia Ferry plans to have all ports in the southern belt use this system. An estimated Rp 1 billion per port is required for this system.

ADISTIDINI INDRESWARI

More Railway Official Questioned in Corruption Probing

Tempo Interactive, Wednesday, 06 January, 2010 | 22:34 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Corruption investigation into the railway directorate at the Transport Ministry resumed on Wednesday as the Corruption Eradication Commission (6/1) summoned Director General of the Railway Services Wendy Aritenang.

Wendy was questioned for indications of budget manipulation in the procurement of used train coaches from Japan in 2006, in which the anti-graft commission have charged one suspect, former Director general of the Railway Service Sumino Eko Saputro.

After the questioning on Wednesday night, Wendy said he did not know who signed the agreement with partner company in the project, adding that project officer was the one who responsible for the process and the prices.

The anti-graft commission suspected mark up for every used coach up to 9 million yen and estimated around Rp11 billion of state losses. The project received Rp48 billion goverment funding which was carried out during Hatta Radjasa's term before he became the State Secretary Minister following the second cabinet reshuffle.

CHETA NILAWATY

Haj managers must reveal accounts, says watchdog

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 11/28/2009 1:07 PM

The Religious Affairs Ministry should improve transparency in its handling of funds paid for pilgrimages to Mecca, a watchdog said Friday.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said the ministry had never provided the public with access to information on the disbursement of these funds.

"The House of Representative is the only institution that has dialogues with the ministry," ICW public service monitoring division coordinator Ade Irawan told The Jakarta Post.

The ministry also had overlapping roles, which had led the public to doubt its integrity, he said.

"The ministry is the regulator and administrator of pilgrimages, and is also the haj-performance evaluator," he said.

He recommended the government appoint an independent body as an administrator of the haj management, to prevent potential corruption.

"This independent body, through a website, should publicize data on the disbursement of these funds," he said.

"That's the cheapest way to make the information public."

The government could act as a regulator for the pilgrimage and an evaluator of the independent body.

"Haj management has fallen into the same pits, year after year," he said, pointing out that pilgrims suffered unnecessary hardships in terms of dormitories, transportation and food supplies.

Earlier, the House of Representatives' haj-monitoring team in Saudi Arabia reported that Indonesian pilgrims were subject to hardships they should not have had to endure.

The team noted problems with unsuitable accommodation. For instance, in some cases there was only one bathroom for 25 pilgrims.

"Not only that, we also found a number of shelters did not have sufficient water supplies," Muhammad Oheo Sinapoy from the Golkar Party said.

Indonesian pilgrims had departed late from Madinah to Mecca because transport had not run on time, the team reported, adding that most of the dormitories in Mecca were on the outer ring of the Masjid al-Haram grand mosque.

Just over one-third of the dormitories were within the inner ring of the grand mosque, they said.

The findings contradict a plan and regulations that stipulate that three-quarters of pilgrim dormitories must be near the grand mosque, the team said.

Contrary to statements made by lawmakers, the Religious Affairs Ministry director general for the Haj, Slamet Riyanto, said recently (via the ministry's website) he had established the Haj Media Center to inform the public of situations during the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

The measure was an initiative undertaken by the ministry to improve transparency, he said. However, the website does not provide details on the disbursement of funds.

Ade said the only improvement the government had made was that was no increase this year to fees pilgrims paid for the pilgrimage. Pilgrims paid between US$3,240 and $3,575 this year, depending on which region they were from.

As of Thursday, 105 Indonesian pilgrims had died during the trip, mostly as a result of cardiac arrest or respiratory or circulation failures, metrotvnews.com reported.

Meanwhile, detiknews.com reported from Saudi Arabia that this year transportation arrangements were much improved, allowing better movement to perform the jumrah.

Related Article:

`Give haj management to private sector'

Minister Reveals Price Probe over Merpati Deal

The Jakarta Globe, Janeman Latul, March 26, 2009

The Merpati-Xi’an fiasco appears to have soured trade ties between Indonesia and China. (Courtesy of Xi’an Aircraft Industry Co.)

The central government will investigate possible corruption involving markups on 15 aircraft bought in a deal worth $231 million between state-owned carrier PT Merpati Nusantara Airlines and Chinese Xi’an Aircraft Industry Co., Sofyan Djalil, the state-owned enterprises minister, said on Wednesday.

Sofyan said the government’s probe would be part of the process of resolving the stalled deal with the Chinese company.

“I think we will seek further details about the prices of the planes before we come to a conclusion,” he said. “I don’t know the details yet [on the prices] but it must be explained.”

“But let’s not come to a hasty conclusion,” he said, adding that the Merpati-Xian deal also included options for spare parts supplies during the next three years, including flight simulators, which could mean the price would be higher than normal.

Merpati agreed to purchase 15 MA-60s in 2006 using a soft loan facility provided by the Chinese government. However, Merpati, saddled with serious financial problems, never followed through on its purchasing commitments.

Xi’an has already threatened to take Merpati to international arbitration in Singapore to recover $90 million in damages from the now-frozen deal, souring bilateral relations between China and Indonesia. The deal has also been blamed for postponing loans of about $5 billion from Chinese banks for the government’s fast-track electricity program.

The 56-seater aircraft has been exported to various countries. And according to Kathmandu-based Nepalitimes, Royal Nepal Airlines paid only $11 million per plane for two aircraft in mid-2005 and got another for free.

Recently, Drajad H. Wibowo, a senior member of the House of Representatives’ Commission XI, which oversees the state budget, called for a corruption investigation into the stalled purchases.

“This issue needs to be investigated by many parties, including the Corruption Eradication Commission,” he said. “I have asked the government to fully scrutinize all foreign loans because most of them involved [illegal] markups.”

Meanwhile, a source within the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry said he suspected that officials at the Finance Ministry, Merpati, the National Development Planning Board, or Bappenas, and Xi’an had colluded to mark up the price of the aircraft.

He based his suspicions on the deal’s high cost.

“The normal price for an MA-60 is about $11 million, but we accepted $15 million [per plane],” he said. “That’s outrageous.”

Hotasi Nababan, the former president director of Merpati who signed the deal back in 2006, told the Jakarta Globe recently that he did not wish to comment on the issue and would leave the matter to the team in charge of restructuring the purchase.

Meanwhile, Sahala Lumban Gaol, head of the negotiating team for Merpati who traveled to Beijing last week with Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Trade Minister Mari Pangestu, said the talks to settle the deal were in an “advanced phase” where both parties had to prepare the options for a settlement.

“However, I cannot reveal the options now, as we are still in negotiations,” he said, adding that his team would find a win-win solution for Merpati and Xi’an.

Jakarta needs planning supervision: Experts

The Jakarta Post, JAKARTA | Sat, 03/14/2009 1:53 PM 

Corruption and a lack of professionalism among government officials and contractors has contributed to many building failures across Jakarta, a seminar concluded on Friday. 

Sulistijo Sidarto Mulyo, chairman of Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) charter of professional engineers, said “building failures” did not just mean building collapsing, but also included poorly planned buildings.

“New schools with no students, or overpriced construction costs for a seaport are also examples of building failures,” Sulistijo told a seminar held by Pelita Harapan University.

If the government and developers worked by the book, these failures could be avoided, he said.

In South Korea, for example, developers must show would-be buyers all materials they intend to use for an apartment, Sulistijo said.

“They [the developers] would not dare change the quality of the materials. Here, developers show materials in promotional brochures but then use lower quality materials in construction,” he lamented.

Sulistijo told a story about an earthquake in a country not unlike Indonesia, in 1985.

“All government buildings crumbled, and only a few were left intact. This showed that not only had substandard materials been used, but that corruption was also invovled,” he said.

A similar catastrophe could happen in Jakarta, Sulistijo said.

Another speaker, Manlian Ronald Simanjuntak of the UPH civil engineering faculty, said building conversions were often a sign of building failure too.

“Basically, if we don’t feel comfortable with a building, this is a sign of a building’s failure,” Manlian said.

He highlighted the conversion of residential areas in the city into commercial premises as a good example of building failure.

As the economy expands and spaces are increasingly hard to find, many Jakarta residents have converted their houses into commercial properties.

South Jakarta municipality reported that owners of 1,649 buildings were abusing their residential permits. Many of these were being used as beauty clinics, spas, cafes, restaurants, offices, storage facilities and pharmacies.

“This is a case of building failure, but the administration doesn’t dare recognize it as a failure because they were the ones who handed out the permits.”

Sulistijo said that good buildings were ones that provided the most benefit to an area, over a certain time frame.

“We are really weak in the area of supervision of building developments,” he said.

He admitted that an independent body, like MUPA (Manggala Utama Penilai Ahli) whose engineering experts members, had yet to take on a supervisory role in building planning and development in Jakarta. (iwp)