DPRD Disagrees With Bengkulu Bank Shares To Be Sold To Chairul Tanjung: Rp. 134 Billion Is Small

Deputy Chairman of the Bengkulu Provincial DPRD Suharto. (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Bengkulu Provincial DPRD leadership disagrees with the plan of the Bengkulu Bank management to sell some of its shares to PT Mega Corpora owned by national businessman Chairul Tanjung.

Deputy Chairman of the Bengkulu Provincial DPRD, Suharto, assessed that there are still many other ways the company can fulfill its core capital, apart from selling shares to companies outside the region.

Suharto was worried that if most of the shares in the bank owned by the Bengkulu Provincial Government were owned by large companies, management authority would become divided and it would be more difficult to include regional interests.

"Those whose names have been invested in an organization, of course they have rights according to the existing portion," said the Gerindra Party politician in Bengkulu, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, November 18.

Previously, President Commissioner of Bank Bengkulu, Ridwan Nurazi, said that the sale of a portion of Bank Bengkulu's shares to PT Mega Corpora was to increase the status of Bank Bengkulu to become a commercial bank for business activities (BUKU) II.

According to Suharto, the issue of the Bengkulu Bank's shortage of core capital amounting to Rp134 billion can still be handled by the regional government in Bengkulu itself, so it is deemed not necessary to involve other parties.

One of them, he said, was by encouraging the village government in Bengkulu to invest in Bengkulu Bank by buying shares using village funds.

"It only remains to be asked by the regents to make a regulation so that the village funds can be used to buy Bengkulu Bank shares. In Bengkulu there are 1,600 villages and if each village donates Rp10 million, how much money will that be," he explained.

"If you only look for Rp130 billion, it is small if the DPRD has intervened, because if there are 10 districts / cities in Bengkulu plus provinces, you cannot search that much," he added.

Meanwhile, Commissioner of Bank Bengkulu Ridwan Nurazi said the decision to follow up the cooperation between Bank Bengkulu and PT Mega Corpora would be determined at the General Meeting of Shareholders (GMS) which is planned to be held on Monday 23 November.

However, based on preliminary information the company owned by Chairul Tanjung will disburse the money in several stages. For the first phase, PT Mega Corpora will buy Bank Bengkulu shares worth IDR 100 billion and the next phase will be distributed in April 2021.

"Next Monday we will hold a general meeting of shareholders (GMS) and there will be determined all kinds of things, about two or three days after that the money will come in," Ridwan explained.