| Sjahril Sabirin | ||||||
The email to Euromoney from Bank of Indonesia said simply that the governor wouldn’t now be attending the Borrowers and Issuers Conference in Singapore so an interview wasn’t possible.
In fact governor Sjahril Sabirin may miss the next two or three annual conferences in Singapore. That depends on the conditions of any parole he may be granted. On March 13 he was convicted of corruption by an Indonesian court and sentenced to three years in prison. Yet despite the conviction he refuses to give up his post. And while an appeal is being heard he is free to go about directing monetary policy.
Sabirin’s conviction stems from a scandal in 1999 when $80 million was supposed to be transferred from the central bank to bail out Bank Bali but ended up in former president BJ Habibie’s re-election campaign kitty. Sabirin says he did nothing wrong in transferring the money and that the conviction does not call into question his credibility.
A senior banker in Jakarta doesn’t agree: “He should quit. He gives the whole central bank a nasty smell.” Another banker in the city says: “We have become a bit jaded about it really. It’s just another thing that makes Indonesia look shabby. “
Sabirin seems to find it hard to take a hint. Under President Abdurrahman Wahid he was under virtual house arrest but managed to cling to his job. Last year when he was thrown in jail for five months there was still no sign of his resignation. It’s said that after his release he immediately drove back to his office and did a full day’s work.
Unfortunately for president Sukarnoputri Megawati, Sabirin has almost complete autonomy and under Indonesian law the central government is powerless to remove him. Unless his guilt is upheld on appeal, that is.
Megawati is trying to show that she is serious about tackling corruption among the elite. But it seems supporters of the opposition Golkar party are being targeted. “A crackdown on corruption is good,” says an analyst in Hong Kong. “But the motivating factors seem a little bit murky.”
