Puskepi Expects New Pertamina Chief to Flight "Oil Mafia"

Reporting by Andilala Pontianak, West Kalimantan (Antara) - Puskepi, a non-governmental organization advocating pro-public policies, has a hope that new Pertamina chief Dwi Soetjipto will have strong commitment to fight oil and gas "mafia" in the country. "According to me the main requirements to fill the position of president director of PT Pertamina is strong leadership, reliable managerial capacity, strong integrity, honesty and commitment to help the government fight oil and gas mafia," Sofyan Zakaria, the director of Puskepi, said when contacted by Antara to comment on Dwi's appointment here on Saturday. He said Dwi Soetjipto seems to have met all the requirements. Dwi may possibly not command oil and gas technicalities but he may be helped by other directors and senior vice president in Pertamina whose expertise has already been proven, he said. "I hope Dwi could carry out Pertamina's transformation that has been launched by his predecessor Ari H Soemarno," he said. Pertamina as the country's biggest state-owned company will always be monitored by the public because it is considered rich and mired with money, he said. In view of that he said Dwi Soetjipto, who is still president director of cement producer PT Semen Indonesia, must be able to make Pertamina more transparent so that the public will not fuss about it again. Pertamina must be able to prove that it is able to always increase its dividends to the government and it must also be able to prove it could become the main buffer for national energy resilience and self-sufficiency, he said. In a press conference on Friday Dwi Soetjipto said he was ready to carry out three visions to make the company become the spearhead to realize the government's program to realize energy sovereignty. "I received a new task in Pertamina. This is a heavy mandate that I must fulfill in line with President Joko Widodo's wish to make the country able to have energy sovereignty soon," he said. He said the first vision is Pertamina must improve efficiency and productivity from downstream to upstream levels. The second vision is conducting reform to overcome various irregularities while the third vision is conducting a review on supply-chain between sport market and medium and long-term contracts to make it better as well storage capacity so that the chain can be managed more optimally in the future, he said. "We believe if Pertamina is managed well and all parties work hard it will become a pride," he said. Besides appointing Dwi Soetjipto the government has also named Ahmad Bambang, Yenni Andayani and Arif Budiman as new directors and honorably discharge former directors. (*)