Suspect In Cooking Oil Case, Let's Get To Know Wilmar Nabati, The Producer Of Sania Owned By The Conglomerate Martua Sitorus And Musim Mas, The Producer Of SunCo, The Tycoon Bachtiar Karim

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Attorney General's Office (Kejagung) has named four people as suspects in the bribery case for palm oil exports that caused scarcity and soaring cooking oil prices in Indonesia. One of the suspects is the Director General of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Trade, Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana.

"There are four suspects, first echelon 1 officials at the Ministry of Trade, IWW," said Attorney General Sanitiar Burhanuddin at a press conference, Tuesday, April 19.

Burhanuddin said that Wisnu was suspected of issuing export permits to a number of palm oil producing companies against the law. His actions resulted in scarce cooking oil in Indonesia and made the price expensive.

The other three suspects are from the private sector. They are the Permata Hijau Group Senior Manager Corporate Affairs with the initials SMA, the Commissioner of PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia MPT, and the General Manager of PT Musim Mas with the initials PT.

PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia has been established since 1989, where the previous name of this company was Bukit Kapur Reksa (BKR). Since its establishment, the company owned by the conglomerate Martua Sitorus has been engaged in the production of cooking oil.

From the start, the company was based in Dumai, Riau which facilitated Wilmar Nabati's activities in exporting production supported by dock facilities. In fact, currently WINA is touted as the company with the largest palm oil plantations in the world, mainly located in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Until now, Wilmar Nabati manages oil palm plantations spread across Sumatra and Kalimantan. Wilmar comes with Sania Royale and Fortune brand cooking oil.

Meanwhile, PT Musim Mas is a company that has long been engaged in the production and processing of palm oil. Musim Mas has been around since 1972 and is known as an integrated player in the palm oil sector.

This company owned by the conglomerate Bachtiar Karim owns plantations, processing plants, refineries, palm kernel mills, oleochemicals, and specialty fats. The company claims to be the largest palm oil exporter in Indonesia.

Downstream, Musim Mas is known for its cooking oil brands Sunco, Tani, and M&M. The company is also recorded as producing biodiesel.