Peter Gontha Says He Was Ever Forced To Sign Withdrawal Of IDR 1 Trillion Of Garuda Indonesia's State Capital Participation, Erick Thohir's Staff: There Is No Such Thing

JAKARTA - Special Staff to the Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Arya Sinulingga responded to fresh funds for Garuda Indonesia. According to him, Peter Gontha's statement regarding the request for withdrawal of state capital participation (PMN) funds worth IDR 1 trillion for Garuda did not occur.

"There is no PMN to Garuda (as stated by Peter Gontha)," he told VOI, Thursday, October 28.

Previously, former Commissioner of PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk Peter F. Gontha revealed the reason he was dismissed from his position at Garuda. According to him, this is because he is not in line with the thoughts of the leaders of the state-owned national airline. One of them is about PMN for Garuda.

Peter himself was appointed as Commissioner of Garuda representing the company's shareholder, namely, PT Trans Airways. The corporation owned by entrepreneur Chairul Tanjung holds 28.27 percent of Garuda's shares. However, last August, Peter was dismissed from the position.

"Do you know why I was 'fired' from Garuda? because it was not in line with the thoughts of its leaders, now we are reaping the rewards," he wrote on his personal Instagram account @petergontha, quoted Thursday, October 28.

In his post, Peter revealed that he was forced to agree to withdraw IDR 1 trillion from the total state capital investment (PMN) which was budgeted at IDR 7 trillion. Finally, he admitted that he was forced to sign a request for funds. Even so, he considers that applying for an injection of funds is tantamount to 'throwing salt in the sea'.

"On December 27, 2020, while I was on vacation in Bali, I was accused of slowing down or making it difficult to disburse PMN money to Garuda. I was forced to agree to the withdrawal of IDR 1 trillion from the promised IDR 7 trillion. I finally signed it," he said.

In fact, said Peter, since February 2020, he has expressed the opinion that the only way to resolve problems within Garuda is to negotiate with aircraft leasing companies or foreign lessors. Because Peter considered that the lessors had arbitrarily given credit to Garuda during the period 2012 to 2016.

However, continued Peter, no one agreed to the proposal he gave. In fact, he admitted that he was hostile to Garuda's directors regarding his proposal.

"The director does not want to listen, the digital trace data is with me. Even there I was hostile," he explained.

Until finally, Peter admitted to resigning from his position as commissioner in February 2021. The reason was that he did not want to continue to earn income, without providing benefits to the company.

In addition, Peter also admitted that he felt that he was being considered too harsh. So this hampers the company's performance. According to him, his statements on social media like this will make him even more hated.

"Now we have to take responsibility for those stupidities. And this writing will make me even more hated among 'them'. I write this status with the greatest responsibility on me," he said.

For your information, based on data from the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) as of September 31, the composition of the owners of Garuda Indonesia consists of the Ministry of SOEs representing the government holding 60.54 percent, PT Trans Airways 28.27 percent, and the public owning 11.19 percent of the issuer's shares coded the GIAA.