Fadel ready to take over Patuha project
Monday, March 13 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
Noted businessman Fadel Muhammad said in Jakarta over the weekend that he was ready to take over the Patuha geothermal power plant now being disputed by its developer Calenergy of of the United States and the U.S. government.
Fadel, an executive of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that it was his company, which initiated the power plant in 1995 but he was "forced" to sell his stake in the power plant to Calenergy, which acquired the power project through its subsidiary Patuha Power BV.
He recalled that when he was about to start the project, former minister of mines and energy Sudjana asked through his boss Yusuf Kalla, now Minister of Industry and Trade, to sell his company's interest to a company, which was jointly owned Dharma Yoga, Sudjana's son, and Muhammad Lufti, the son in law of former coordinating minister for industry and economy Hartarto.
"They forced me to sell my ownership? they paid me for the stake but it was against my will," Fadel said, adding that Poernomo (Yusgiantoro), a former expert staff at the ministry of mines and energy, witnessed how they forced me to sell his interest in the power plant, the first power plant which used geothermal as its energy source.
Fadel, a former president of the publicly listed engineering company PT Bukaka, also said that Sudjana had also asked Yusuf Kalla to replace him from his position at the engineering company.
The U.S. government's Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC) has asked the Indoensian government to pay the claim worth about US$290 million it paid to Calenergy International, the owner of of the Patuha power plant. But Finance Minister Bambang Sudibyo rejected the claim saying the Indonesian government did have the money to pay it.
OPIC, along with Kloyds of London paid Calenergy, more popularly called California Energy in Indonesia, the $290 million in full last November. The payment came after the U.S. power company lodged a claim under its political risk insurance with OPIC, after PLN failed to pay Calenergy a sum awarded it by an independent artbitration panel last year.
Calenergy filed arbitration proceedings against PLN in September in 1998 after the later refused to pay it for electricity from its geothermal power plant in Dieng, Central Java and the government's decision to suspend its other plant in Patuha, West Java. (*)