Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Despite the thoroughgoing political disgrace that the Suharto family has seemingly endured since Indonesia's political and financial bubbles burst in 1998, his avaricious children seem to have endured their downfall rather well. At least three remain locked into a stream of profits from the remnants of enterprises in place before the collapse.

The three, Bambang Trihatmojo, Siti "Tutut" Hardijanti Rukmana, and Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, had massive interlocking billion-dollar empires in property, banking, industry, telecommunications, media and transport. Although swaths of their empires were handed over to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) and they are rarely seen in public – especially Tommy, who is in prison – they have survived handily.

Nor are the Suharto children alone. In fact, Indonesia remains one of most corrupt countries in the world, according to the Berlin-based Transparency International's latest index of perceived corruption levels, which was released early this month. In fact, analysts say, the problem has actually gotten worse since Suharto's downfall, with splinter political parties out to get what they can and the administration of President Megawati Sukarnoputri demonstrating no political will to combat the problem. As an example, parliamentary Speaker Akbar Tanjung remains free, despite being convicted of embezzling Rp40 billion (US$4.7 million) in state funds that were supposed to have been used to buy food for the poor.

The ability of the Suharto family to continue to operate with impunity is cited as evidence of that lack of political will. Today, for instance, Tommy is widely believed to be running the remnants of his Humpuss business empire from prison, where he was sent for the murder of Supreme Court judge Syafiuddin Kartamasamita. Tutut, the most visible of the three, owns at least a Bali hotel and toll roads in the Philippines. Bambang still holds a major interest in his publicly traded company Bimantara Citra.

A fourth sibling, Sigit, one of the least visible of the Suharto offspring, was Tommy's partner in Humpuss and still holds 40 percent of the shares. Suharto's middle daughter, Siti Titi Hediati Harijadi (Titiek), now 43, owned a conglomerate, Maharani Paramita, with interests in property, telecoms, finance and forestry. Little is heard now about the company or the lady herself, who was often in the public eye because of her marriage to Major-General Prabowo Subianto, the infamous commander of the strategic reserves. She is a partner of Prabowo's billionaire elder brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo in the $2.5 billion Paiton power project but no corruption allegations have been made against her.

Suharto's youngest daughter, Siti Hutami Endang Adyninsih (nicknamed Mamiek), 39, had significant interests in oil-palm plantations, mobile telecommunications, land reclamation and aircraft leasing but again, little is heard of her these days.

Tommy is the only one of Suharto's children to be tried and convicted, for graft. If he hadn't taken vengeance on judge Syafiuddin for his original graft conviction, he might well have escaped jail time. The chances of any of the other five following in his footsteps remain slim despite the fact that a House of Representatives' special committee of inquiry into corruption at Pertamina, established in September 2001, demanded that several of Suharto's children, cronies and former ministers be arrested for their roles in graft cases involving the company.

At the time of the fall, analysts posited that the family's businesses were largely based on short-term rent-seeking arrangements, and most of them, as well as having borrowed heavily, actually owned no assets per se. They were involved in television and radio networks, banks, chemical factories, pharmaceutical companies, shopping malls, hotels, paper and pulp mills, shipping lines and taxi companies and were commonly thought to have very little business acumen beyond that which was coincidentally bestowed by their father's power. Estimates of the net worth of the Suharto family ranged from $8 billion to $30 billion prior to 1998 as they set up "monopolies" that were nothing more than a cost of doing business to the multinationals and local entrepreneurs wishing to set up in the country.

Tommy's prison empire

Tommy, last year sentenced to 15 years for Syafiuddin's assassination, is locked in Nusakambangan Prison away from the public eye, but he still retains his original 60 percent of Humpuss, the empire he founded with $100,000 of capital in 1984. Within 10 weeks of the startup, the 22-year-old, with only a high-school education, had made Humpuss into a business corporation with 20 subsidiaries. By 1985 Tommy had already bought the state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina subsidiary Perta Oil Marketing (Perta), thus becoming a crude-oil broker for Pertamina. Perta was later closed down by the government, having allegedly milked Pertamina of almost $1 million a month.

Humpuss quickly mushroomed into a major concern, turning over $500 million a year by 1994. At the end of 1998 Tommy resigned from the board of directors of Humpuss and became president commissioner. Humpuss's assets may have dropped to a quarter of pre-crisis levels and the workforce slashed to a third of what it was, but there are two major assets remaining.

These are the LNG (liquefied natural gas) shipping company publicly listed Humpuss Intermoda and the Humpuss Aromatik petrochemical project that processes LNG from Arun in Aceh.

Humpuss still earns much of its revenue from oil, LNG and methanol shipment contracts with Pertamina, using its 11 tankers. Though the government has scrapped several service and shipping contracts between private companies and Pertamina, Humpuss Intermoda still has a long-term contract with Pertamina until 2009.

In 1990, Pertamina granted a 20-year concession to operate the lucrative Cepu oilfield block to Humpuss Patragas, in cooperation with Australia's Ampolex, which owned a 49 percent stake in the field. In mid-2000 when Humpuss Patragas could not pay its debts to IBRA, it was forced to sell its 51 percent stake in the fields to ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia. The latter bought out both Humpuss and Ampolex.

Humpuss, with 16 debt-laden subsidiaries, had "troubled" loans of more than $850 million (Rp6.76 trillion), making it IBRA's second largest debtor in 1999. But just before he went on the lam in November 2000 Tommy let go of one of his biggest assets, the Jakarta International Cargo Terminal (JICT), for $147 million. That left Humpuss's obligations to IBRA almost settled, with a mere $125 million needing to be rescheduled.

Timber baron Bob Hasan, in the next-door cell to Tommy in Nusakambangan Prison, was his partner in PT Gatari Hutama Air Service, Perta Oil Marketing, and Sempati Air. There is no verifiable information on whether or not Tommy still runs the business from Nusakambangan, but when he was languishing in Jakarta's Cipinang Prison awaiting trial, his secretary Indriyani Yastiningtyas was recorded as a daily visitor.

Tutut's roads and hotels

Tutut, 54, commonly known as Mbak (sister), started in business in 1983 with trading company Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada (Citra Group). She quickly built it into a diversified conglomerate with interests in telecommunications, broadcasting, pulp and paper. Citra was also a contractor for toll roads, airports and harbors in the country, before expanding operations farther north.

In 1995 through a joint-venture company Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp, Tutut won a contract from former president Fidel Ramos to build, finance and manage the 45-kilometer Metro Manila Skyway Project through a 30-year built-operate-and transfer (BOT) contract with the Philippine government.

In July last year she lost one of her main earners when letting go of her last remaining stake in lucrative toll-road operator PT Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada (CMNP). Most of Indonesia's toll roads were built and operated by state-owned PT Jasa Marga, but a 1989 decree, not revoked until 10 years later, gave CMNP 75 percent of profits from toll roads it operated in partnership with Jasa Marga. Jasa Marga itself investigated allegations of corruption in some of Tutut's toll- road concessions and subsequently barred CMNP from participating in tenders for new projects, including the Jakarta Outer Ring Road.

Tutut, an icon on television broadcasts in her Muslim scarf, is the least media-shy in the family. Thought to be worth about $2 billion before the crisis, she still has some big irons in the fire.

In Manila the Skyway has been built and her group is building a 17.5km expressway that will cut across Manila and connect two major expressways.

Tutut also co-owns the five-star Nusa Dua Beach Hotel in Bali with the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah.

Bambang's media and broadcasting empire

Bambang Trihatmodjo, 49, known for shunning the limelight, had an estimated pre-crisis net worth of $4.5 billion. His conglomerate Bimantara Citra (Bimantara), which he founded in 1982, had interests in petrochemicals, banking, a car venture with South Korea's Hyundai, satellite company Satelindo, and the biggest private TV station, RCTI.

The latter broke the monopoly of state-run TVRI when set up by Bambang as the first private broadcaster in 1990. From that year, a progressive downsizing of operations saw Bimantara reduced from more than 100 subsidiaries and affiliates to 51. When it went public in the middle of 1995, only 26 of these companies were included in the float; but as the crisis took hold in 1998, the bad debts from 23 out of these 26 totaled Rp4.36 trillion.

Though Bambang was questioned over alleged irregularities in closed Bank Andromeda, closed down by the government in 1998, no charges were laid and he still owns 14 percent of Bimantara shares through his PT Asriland. The latter is a real-estate company he owns with his wife and has been a major investment vehicle for the couple. Asriland, through PT Bima Graha, the holding company that controls the major stake in Satelindo, is also a part owner of Satelindo.

Tycoon Hary Tanoesoedibyo, through holding company Bhakti Investama (Bhakti), owns the largest single stake in Bimantara with 24.9 percent, but insiders say Tanoesoedibyo acted as a proxy for Bambang. The main thrust of the group is media and broadcasting, and it is well on the way to being the largest telecom and media company in the country.

"We are now dominant players in the two fastest-growing sectors in the economy, and that was a strategic move on our part," Tanoesoedibyo said recently.

When media operations are consolidated, the group will include three television stations, numerous radio stations, newspapers and other print media.

Bimantara owns 70 percent of Global TV, 53 percent of RCTI and 25 percent of Metro TV. It has holdings also in Indosiar and Televisi Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI). Tutut still holds 65 percent of the shares in TPI. In 1992 she stole a march on Bambang by getting permission to transmit peak- time programming nationally on TPI station while Bambang's RCTI, bleeding money, was restricted to encrypted broadcasts. RCTI won the right to broadcast freely the following year and forged ahead to a market leadership it holds to this day.

In 2002, Bimantara made a net profit of Rp347.8 billion – marginally up from Rp344 billion in 2001.

Though Bhakti also owns Bentoel, a major kretek cigarette maker, its media and broadcasting businesses brought in Rp96 billion of the net income in 2002, dwarfing a Rp24 billion net income the year before. The increase was mainly due to advertising revenue from RCTI.

The capital's top hotel, the Grand Hyatt Jakarta, is listed among its prime assets, and it only recently sold off its stake in the adjoining marble-clad shopping mall, Plaza Indonesia.

In 1993 the government handed a monopoly in the satellite business to Bambang, who then set up two joint ventures with state companies Telkom and Indosat to operate two Hughes communication satellites. One of the ventures, Satelindo (PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia), launched Palapa-C1 in April 1996 from Cape Canaveral at a cost of $190 million. Bambang himself also has a stake in Jawa Power, one of several power plants, approved in the 1990s, whereby state-run power company PLN was forced to buy electricity at above-market rates from these companies in a series of long-term purchase agreements. The $500 million power project in East Java involved the disgraced US power company Enron, Siemens Power Ventures, the 50 percent owner, and British energy producer PowerGen PLC, which held 35 percent. A subsidiary of Bimantara holds 15 percent.

The inclusion of Bambang in the deal was par for the course. A local partner was very often a condition for government approval, and foreign companies wooed rent seekers such as Bimantara to expedite the process. Djiteng Marsudi, a former president of PLN, admitted that power companies "dictated terms to us because they had Indonesia's first family behind them".

He told the Wall Street Journal in 1998, "Resisting them was like suicide."

Eleven cases of corruption, collusion and nepotism in Pertamina were alleged to have caused losses of $1.7 billion to the state.

British consortium Foster Wheeler in 1989 won a Pertamina contract to build the Balongan oil refinery in Indramayu, West Java. Tutut and Sigit allegedly conspired with Pertamina and then mines and energy minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita to have the contract awarded to Foster Wheeler, in return for which they allegedly received cash payments.

The attorney general in February 2001 questioned Sigit about the alleged mark-up and bribes, but he and the others were never taken to court. This August the AG quietly dropped an investigation into an alleged corruption case involving Tutut's fuel pipeline construction project in Central Java, saying no irregularities had been found in a contract Pertamina awarded to her consortium. This was despite indications the deal caused the state to lose millions of dollars.

Thus, despite the widespread allegations of fabulous wealth gained at the expense of the Indonesian treasury and taxpayers, the family has largely survived intact, even including Tommy with his jail time.