Member Of The House Of Representatives, Adian Napitupulu: IPO Pertamina Geothermal Energy Is Not A Form Of Privacy Effort

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

Member of Commission VII DPR Adian Napitupulu assessed that the initial public offering (IPO) of PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE) was not an effort to privatize the oil and gas BUMN.

"Plogically, by becoming an issuer, of course, PGE's performance, transparency and efficiency will increase. If anyone is related to PGE's IPO, it seems like a privatization step, then of course it is not appropriate because what is released is not more than 25 percent," he said in a written statement, quoted from Antara, Friday, February 17.

Therefore, he continued, it would not be appropriate if there were several parties who mentioned PGE's IPO as if the sale of state assets to the private sector, so they then refused.

Adian assessed that the efforts to reject the PGE IPO were too excessive, even with interests that wanted to discredit SOEs or the government towards 2024.

For this reason, he invites the public to be more objective so that it is not easily generated with illogical issues of privatization. Moreover, there are several points that, if observed with common sense, actually show that PGE's IPO is indeed positive.

According to him, the positive thing is that the number of shares released is only 25 percent or not half. This composition shows that the majority of shareholders are still in Pertamina's hands.

Thus, he added, all organizational policy lines also remain under the control of Pertamina, which incidentally belongs to the state.

"The logic is, how can the public as the owner of 25 percent of the shares take over from Pertamina, which still has a majority of shares, which is 75 percent? Please show the calculations if 25 percent can take over 75 percent," he said.

Then, the principle of transparency is mandatory for issuers, he continued, with this principle, there is no gap for PGE to cover up or engineer financial reports. That is, everything is all fair.

Every transaction will be visible and monitored, he added, if there is an attempt to cheat, of course it can be easily read by the public.

In addition, he said, companies engaged in the geothermal sector, which in fact are new and renewable energy backbones (EBT), PGE requires a lot of funds, one of which is through the IPO.

"Don't forget that with the IPO, PGE does not need to pay debt payment obligations. All it does is share profits with investors," he said.

Fourth, geothermal companies operating in Indonesia are not only PGE, but there are also other private companies with total entrepreneurship of no less than 49 companies including private companies.

"From that data, the issue of privatization is certainly increasingly unfounded because legislation does open up opportunities for the private sector to manage geothermal, not just stocks," he said.