Jakarta – The State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry has assured that power plant projects will not be affected by the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) move to name state-owned electricity company PLN president director Sofyan Basir a graft suspect on Tuesday.
Sofyan is accused of being involved in a corruption case pertaining to the development of the Riau-1 power plant project, which has also implicated former social affairs minister Idrus Marham, lawmaker Eni Saragih and businessman Johannes B. Kotjo.
Secretary to the SOEs Ministry, Imam Apriyanto Putro, called on the management of PLN to implement the projects. He also called on the PLN officials to cooperate with law enforcement personnel by providing them with information in the case.
"The SOEs Ministry respects [the KPK's move] based on the presumption of innocence and together with PLN is ready to cooperate with the KPK in handling the case," he said as reported by tempo.co.
The power plant project is designed to have a capacity of 2 x 300 megawatts. The letter of intent (LoI) for the project was signed in January 2018, with completion in 2024.
Meanwhile, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry's electricity director general, Rida Mulyana, also expressed the hope that the naming of Sofyan as a suspect would not affect PLN's performance in handling various projects.
"We are of course concerned about the case, but we have to respect law enforcement," he added. (bbn)