JAKARTA - Outspoken former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has used YouTube as a platform to lambast bad bureaucracy, rent-seeking and systematic inefficiency in Indonesia's state-owned companies.
Mr Basuki said Indonesia should establish a super holding company for state-controlled firms, after the exampleof Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek. "They are insane. They asked for 500 billion rupiah for a paperless process in Pertamina," said Mr Basuki. He also said Pertamina could have tapped into at least 12 potential oil blocks for exploration domestically rather than venturing overseas and acquiring foreign assets.Mr Basuki also took issue with the way underperforming Pertamina senior officials were sacked from their respective posts but continued to receive the same fat salaries merely on grounds of seniority.
He had argued then that the verse had been misused to deceive Jakarta residents into voting against him.After he was released from prison, Mr Basuki was appointed by Mr Joko to take up the role of chief commissioner in Pertamina, one of the country's most strategic state companies that had been often plagued by inefficiency and corruption.