Selection Committee Is Asked To Firmly Prevent Interests Of The Conglomerate Of OJK Boss Candidates

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The candidates for the Board of Commissioners of the Financial Services Authority (DK OJK) for the 2022–2027 period are getting narrower. From the second stage of the selection which gave rise to 33 names, in the third stage there were 29 candidates left.

Citing the announcement from the Ministry of Finance, stage IV selection (affirmations/interviews) will take place from 2 to 5 March 2022.

This selection process will be more interesting considering that many parties assess that the presence of OJK DK candidates from the private sector, actually raises the issue of conglomeration. As previously stated by the Head of Finance and Banking of the Central Executive Board (BPP), Hipmi Anggawira.

Anggawira once said that the OJK DK candidate should not be an extension of the oligarchs and conglomerates and hoped that there would be no elements of wish.

Recently, several economists also commented on the issue of conglomeration on the name of the OJK DK candidate. One of them is an economic practitioner and CEO of Fath Capital, Muliandy Nasution.

Muliandy is concerned about the potential for “special treatment” from the elected OJK commissioners to the interests of certain companies when the commissioners previously worked for a private company. "Especially for private companies affiliated with conglomerates," said Muliandy, quoted on Tuesday, March 1.

Muliandy said, among the 29 candidates for OJK commissioner members who were elected to the next stage, there are still candidates who are still actively affiliated with certain conglomerates, in the sense of working in strategic positions in private companies affiliated with the conglomerate companies.

Therefore, it is the task of the Selection Committee to prevent this from happening, so that any member of the OJK board of commissioners will be truly professional, objective, independent, and free from interference from the interests of the conglomerate.

"Of course, the Selection Committee team is expected to have professionalism and firmness to prevent this from happening," he concluded.

Meanwhile, Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) Bhima Yudhistira said the inclusion of several names from industry or the private sector had positive and negative sides. "The positive is that having expertise, experience in the technical field, or practitioners in the financial sector can provide the ability for OJK to adapt, especially in terms of digital capabilities," said Bhima.

Meanwhile, from the negative side, continued Bhima, there would be a risk of a conflict of interest, because he was afraid that the supervision would be unprofessional and balanced.