Tomy Winata: Paulus Wanted to Reconcile Differences

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Indonesian tycoon Tomy Winata, who leads the Artha Graha conglomerate, said that he had known about problems faced by another tycoon, Paulus Tannos, in connection with the Rp 5.8 trillion electronic ID card (e-KTP) megaproject. Paulus is the owner of Sandipala Arthaputra, a company which prints letters with a special security seal that had won the project from the Home Ministry. He and four other companies are part of the Republic of Indonesia Printing consortium that will print 172 million cards."Im just mediating. Paulus has asked for a reconciliation," he told Ananda Badudu of Tempo who contacted him on Thursday. Tomy told Tempo that Paulus did ask him to act as mediator in the problems the former had with Andi Winata, Tomys son. Currently residing in Singapore with his immediate family, Paulus is currently on the Interpol wanted list after police reports were reportedly filed in Jakarta by Andi and his business colleague, Jack Budiman, against Paulus Tannos. The police complaint reports refer to allegations that Paulus failed to keep his end of a business deal linked to the Rp 5.8 trillion project. According to the reports, Paulus and Andi had a deal with Andi would through his connections provide STMicro semiconductor chips at a cost, to be fitted into the e-KTP cards, which will eventually replace ID cards across the nation. When Tempo met with Paulus in Singapore, he said that he refused to pay for chips that were unusable. To help solve this problem, Tomy met Paulus at the Conrad Hotel in Hong Kong and Borobudur Hotel."This was all at the request of Pauluss. He ask me to mediate the problem, through Jack Budiman," he said. Jack is another partner of Paulus' who is also close to Tomy Winata.He added, "I agreed to mediate simply because I wanted the project to go well, because its for the sake of the nation," he said.MUNAWWAROH | ANANDA BADUDU