The declaration by the national audit agency on Monday that the 2008 Bank Century bailout cost the state a total of $611 million should push the country’s antigraft agency to intensify its probe into the scandal

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Bank Century Case At Point of No Return

By Jakarta Globe on 10:35 am December 24, 2013.
The declaration by the national audit agency on Monday that the 2008 Bank Century bailout cost the state a total of Rp 7.43 trillion ($611 million), should push the country’s antigraft agency to intensify its probe into the scandal. Most importantly, the first announcement by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) that the state lost that much money should dispel any remaining doubts whether public funds had indeed been stolen and whether the bailout probe was politically motivated.The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has proven time and again that it is independent and professional, operating without regard for political affiliation.

While the public should of course continue to monitor the KPK’s work, for now we urge all parties to respect and support its investigation into the scandal and stop accusing the antigraft body of playing political games.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself has announced his support for the KPK investigation and Vice President Boediono showed statesmanship by voluntarily explaining to investigators why the decision was made to bail out Bank  Century while he was the central bank governor.

We laud this example given by the country’s two top leaders.

For years, the people’s opinion has been divided on the case and the scandal has held top officials hostage while they should have been fully focused on the nation’s development.

The KPK has reached a point of no return in this case, and its ability to successfully bring it to court will clear any lingering doubts about its motives. This case can make the antigraft body even stronger — showing once and for all that there is no impunity in the fight against corruption.

If the KPK can bring closure to the Bank Century case, this would enable the country to move on and deal with other important challenges.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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