Defending Ex-Director Of Pertamina Karen Agustiawan, JK Calls It Better For Excess Energy

JAKARTA - The 10th Vice President and 12th Jusuf Kalla (JK) assess that the availability of excess energy for a country is actually better. Because, if there is a shortage, one of them will cause problems to lose investors.

The statement was made when JK annotated the availability of energy like food. Where, the state must have stock or reserves.

"So indeed the energy is better than less, the same as rice, better than less," said JK during a trial at the Corruption Court at the Central Jakarta District Court, Thursday, May 16.

If there is a shortage of food, people will suffer. Even with energy. If there is a problem of availability, then, the impact will be very large.

The energy in question is like fuel oil or fuel.

In fact, investors in the country are said to leave if they are short of energy. Moreover, in the stage of bringing in investors, the state promises adequacy in the amount of energy.

"Because that energy is once I want to repeat, that these are chickens and eggs, we invite foreign investors here with the guarantee that there is energy. If investors don't have it, then there is no energy, they will all disappear in Indonesia," said JK.

In this case, Karen Agustiawan was charged with causing state losses of 113.84 million United States (US) dollars or equivalent to Rp1.77 trillion due to alleged corruption in the procurement of liquefied natural gas or LNG at Pertamina in 2011 2014.

The indictment is based on the Investigative Audit Report of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) of the Republic of Indonesia in the context of calculating state losses for the procurement of LNG US company, Corporate Christi Liquefaction LLC (CCL) in Pertamina and other relevant agencies Number: 74/LHP/XXI/12/2023 dated December 29, 2023.

Karen was charged with enriching herself amounting to Rp1.09 billion and 104,016 US dollars or equivalent to Rp1.62 billion. Karen was also charged with enriching a corporation, namely CCL worth 113.84 million US dollars or equivalent to Rp1.77 trillion, which resulted in state financial losses.

In addition, he was also charged with granting approval for gas business development at several potential LNG refineries in the US without any clear procurement guidelines and only granting principle permits without the support of basic justification, technical and economic analysis, as well as risk analysis.

Karen is also said to have not asked for a written response from the Pertamina Board of Commissioners and approval of the General Meeting of Shareholders (GMS) before the signing of the LNG CCL Train 1 and Train 2 purchase agreement and granting power of attorney.