Questioning the Ethics of the DPR Asks Alms for Sarongs to Pertamina for Electoral Districts

Jakarta, Armfalcon.com —

Members of the Republic of Indonesia DPR are back in the spotlight. This time it is related to alms for electoral districts (dapils) which are considered to be difficult to obtain from State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN), one of which is PT Pertamina (Persero).

This started from a working meeting of Commission VII DPR RI and President Director of PT Pertamina (Persero) Nicke Widyawati, Tuesday (4/4). This meeting discussed the causes of fires at a number of the company’s refineries.

However, in the middle of the meeting, members of the council mentioned alms. DPR Commission VII member Ramson Siagian said that it is now difficult to get sarong alms from the state oil and gas company because they have to get approval from BUMN Minister Erick Thohir.

This Gerindra politician said that currently all alms or assistance from Pertamina must go through Erick. According to him, this reduced Pertamina’s alms and triggered many problems at the company, one of which was a factory fire.

“All of that has to go to Mr. Erick, like that, the Minister of BUMN. He said, all BUMN were coordinated. For the previous period, I WA, uh suddenly 2,000 sarongs were sent to Pekalongan and Pemalang, during the last period when he (Nicke Widyawati) was still the new president director ,” Ramson said at the meeting.

Previously, Member of Commission VII of the Democratic Faction Muhammad Nasir also assessed that the problem of factory fires that occurred successively at Pertamina was most likely due to the president director’s lack of alms.

“As Pak Gandung said earlier, you have to pray a lot, or maybe you don’t give alms, maybe you don’t have enough infaq. Maybe later friends can continue this distribution, plus physically and mentally, hopefully this (refinery problem) will be resolved,” said Nasir at the same meeting.

SOE observer from the University of Indonesia (UI) Toto Pranoto assesses that misused CSR practices are not a new case. This is considered to be an open secret that is often exploited by members of the council.

“CSR/TJSL management from SOEs is often prone to being misused. For example, because they are afraid of the influence of certain members of the DPR, TJSL allocations are often given to the electoral districts of the members of the council,” he told Armfalcon.com.com.

As a result, areas that should be targeted for CSR distribution cannot be addressed. In fact, the purpose of CSR funds is to provide assistance to the community around the company’s work area.

“Whereas other areas that are directly adjacent to Pertamina’s operating areas may receive less attention. So it could happen that CSR assistance may not be on target,” he explained.

Therefore, he suggested the government, in this case the Ministry of SOEs, to tighten supervision over the distribution of CSR funds. Because, this problem has often occurred and until now there are still CSR that are not on target.

So aspect governance that must be considered by BUMN when conducting an assessment of TJSL targets. The point is that the targets should be directly affected by aspects of the BUMN operations,” he said.

Questionable ethics

Meanwhile, Senior Analyst for Indonesia Strategic and Economic Action Institution Ronny P Sasmita thinks that outspoken members of the council asking Nicke for alms for the electoral district are inappropriate. Moreover, it is in a public forum, so the ethics of the representatives of the people should be questioned.

Moreover, because the alms requested use BUMN funds under the guise of CSR and are given to the community on behalf of the council concerned.

“Of course it is very unethical and inappropriate for BUMN funds to be used to shop for something that is then used by politicians for image. It is very unsightly and commendable,” explained Ronny.

According to him, every company, especially BUMN, is required to have CSR funds or assistance to the community. However, it must go through a program that is clear and really beneficial for the residents who are the target.

“Morally and ethically, BUMN CSR funds must be in the form of clear programs related to corporate social responsibility to the public, especially the people affected by company operations or economically burdened communities in an area,” he said.

He assessed that the company’s CSR budget cannot be given just like that. Moreover, only with short messages (whatsapp) as conveyed by members of the council and immediately given.

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