Berni K. Moestafa, Jakarta – Hundreds of employees from Bank Central Asia (BCA) demonstrated on Thursday against the planned sale of BCA, stirring up familiar concerns of mob politics blocking crucial privatization and asset sales programs. Rallying inside the House of Representatives complex ,the employees demanded the government to cancel the sale of BCA, Antara reported. "We're concerned that once it is sold, there'll be mass layoffs," said Bilal, a spokesman for the bank's labor union. One banner read "don't let BCA fall into foreign hands", another read "we're victims of privatization", "where will BCA privatization proceeds go to?"
Bilal said the protest involved BCA employees from various branch offices here and from East Java. It was not immediately clear whether the employees' protests were entirely aimed against foreign ownership, or whether they preferred the bank to remain under state control.
Bilal added that they also rejected the Salim Group from regaining control of the bank. The Salim group, which founded the bank, was forced out of BCA after mismanagement led to the release of billions of US dollars in bail out funds to save BCA from collapsing in the late 90s.
As a result, the government took over the bank and banned Salim from reclaiming it. Although Salim is not among the four final bidders, some experts have raised suspicions that they are using one of the two local consortiums as a well-disguised front to buy the bank.
To recoup some of the bail out funds, the government plans to sell a 51 percent stake in the bank. In charge of the sale is the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), which is now in the final stage.
Four final bidders have emerged, two of them foreign. They are the British-based Standard Chartered Bank Plc and the US investment firm Farallon Management Capital. Both companies have publicly announced that they had no plans for massive layoffs, and that they intended to keep BCA as it was.
The BCA protest is hauntingly reminiscent of last year's failed effort to sell state cement producer PT Semen Gresik to Mexico's Cemex SA de CV. Employees at Semen Gresik and its two units, Semen Padang and Semen Tonasa, successfully blocked a government option to sell a 51 percent stake in the company to Cemex.
Backed by local politicians, they rejected foreign control and threatened to go on strike if the government went ahead with the option. The government still hopes to sell Semen Gresik, but will avoid the issue for the time being due to fears of a backlash from employees. Analysts called this mob politics, suspecting that certain groups instigated such protests to protect their interests in the state-owned enterprises.
It remains to be seen though whether the late protest by BCA employees could gather enough steam to seriously hinder the sale. So far IBRA has set no timetable for the finalization of the sale. Uncertainties linger even after the final bids for BCA have been submitted.
IBRA argued it could not process the bids as Bank Indonesia had yet to finalize its assessment of the bidders. Passing Bank Indonesia's assessment is mandatory for owning BCA, which once was the country's largest privately owned retail bank.
None of the four bidders have submitted the necessary documents for the assessment yet. "I have called on the bidders to quickly submit all required documents," IBRA chairman I Putu Gede Ary Suta said after a meeting with the Business Competition Supervisory Commission.
He said he would decide with the central bank the best timing for a deadline, by which bidders must submit their documents.