At The Cooking Oil Session, Customs And Excise Officers Assess Business Actors Are Non-Mandatory To Realize CPO Quota

JAKARTA - Head of the Export Sub Directorate at the Directorate General of Customs and Excise of the Ministry of Finance Vitha Budhi Sulistyo revealed that business actors receiving export approvals (PE) are not required to realize the amount of export quotas for crude palm oil (CPO) and derivative products they obtain.

Vitha also emphasized that not using PE facilities was not a violation. According to him, business actors have the right to use the PE CPO facility or not.

This was disclosed by Vitha Budhi when testifying in the follow-up trial of the CPO export approval (PE) corruption case or the cooking oil case at the Tipikor District Court.

"Not a violation," said Vitha at the Tipikor District Court, Central Jakarta, Monday, November 28.

Initially, the witness was confirmed by the judge, whether the obligation to fulfill domestic needs (domestic market obligation/DMO) was one of the matters regulated in the Decree of the Minister of Finance (KMK) regarding CPO exports. According to him, the DMO is regulated by the Ministry of Commerce.

Vitha explained that the KMK only regulates PE issues that have been given by the Ministry of Trade. He said that Customs and Excise only saw the PE given by the Ministry of Trade regarding the granting of CPO export permits.

“Only (seeing) the PE. We in the technical team do not see the actual amount or the amount we only see the amount of the remaining quota in PE," he said.

In response to the witness' statement, the Legal Counsel for Defendant Master Parulian Tumanggor Patra M Zen assessed that there was no unlawful act related to the non-use of PE facilities.

"That there was no unlawful act committed regarding the claim of the Public Prosecutor which stated that there was an Export Approval that was not used," he said.

In addition, this meeting also revealed the distribution of cooking oil from the Wilmar Group through PT Sari Agro Tama Persada (SATP) to PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya (Alfamart).

Merchandising Manager of PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya Tbk Djuwita admitted that his party had made a Purchase Order (PO) of cooking oil to PT SATP.

Realized

After the PO is fulfilled, the cooking oil is first placed in Alfaria's warehouse (distribution center/DC). After that, it is sent to Alfamart outlets.

"After we do the PO to the distributor, the distributor will send it to our DC," he said.

On the other hand, Patra admitted that the Wilmar Group had never made direct sales to PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya Tbk and PT Swalayan Sukses Abadi.

"In accordance with the facts of the previous trial, the Wilmar Group sold it to PT Sari Agro Tama Persada, as the D1 distributor," said Patra.

As a result, he said, all obligations to realize domestic sales had been carried out by the Wilmar Group.

It is known, the public prosecutor (JPU) at the Attorney General's Office indicted five defendants in the alleged corruption case in providing export facilities for crude palm oil (Crude Palm Oil / CPO) which caused losses to the state in the amount of IDR 18,359,698,998,925 (IDR 18.3 trillion).

The five defendants referred to are the Director General of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia Indra Sari Wisnu Wardhana and Commissioner of PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia Master Parulian Tumanggor.

Then, Senior Manager of Corporate Affair PT Victorindo Alam Lestari Stanley MA, General Manager (GM) of the General Affair Section of PT Musim Mas Pierre Togar Sitanggang, Policy Adviser/Analyst at Independent Research & Advisory Indonesia (IRAI), and Assistance Team for the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs of the Republic Indonesia Weibinanto Halimdjati alias Lin Che Wei.

"What is detrimental to state finances or the country's economy is loss to state finances in the amount of IDR 6,047,645,700,000 and losses to the state economy in the amount of IDR 12,312,053,298,925," said the prosecutor while reading out the indictment at the Tipikor District Court, Central Jakarta, Wednesday 31 August 2022.