Bapepam: Accountant and Great River Involved in Conspiracy
Friday, 08 December, 2006 | 13:04 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The Capital Market Supervisory Board (Bapepam) will soon transfer the case of PT Great River International’s financial statement to the High Court.

Head of Bapepam, Fuad Rahmany, said he found indications of conspiracy in the presentation of the textile company's financial statement. “In this Great River case, the accountants and the issuer are involved in conspiracy,” he said.

However, he was not willing to explain the conspiracy theory in detail.

Fuad said an accountant's duty is only to give an opinion on a company's financial statement. An accountant, he said, must not manipulate anything whatsoever. “Because there is a heavy sanction for that (manipulation),” he said.

As already reported, since August, Bapepam has been investigating the public accountant that audits Great River's financial statement of fiscal year 2003. Bapepam has names four members of Great River's board of directors as suspects, including the owner Sunjoto Tanudjaja.

The investigation is based on the result of examining the indications of fraud in the financial statement presentation. The reason is, Bapepam found the remainder in sales and accounts receivable in the statement.

Due to this, Great River suffered cash flow difficulty. The company could not repay Rp250 billion in loans to Bank Mandiri and failed to pay bonds amounting to Rp400 billion.

Fuad acknowledged Bapepam's investigation over the case went slowly and found an obstacle. Some witnesses who were summoned did not want to come to Bapepam.

Wahyudin Fahmi/Yuliawati