TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Erick Thohir in a virtual discussion on Thursday explained why many cases of corruption have taken place in SOEs. He argued that it is due to the conflict of interest between being a public servant and a business entity manager.

“SOEs used to hold two roles to fulfill economic values and be a public servant. But the problem is that the boundary is unclear, which resulted in the board of directors conflicting between [state] assignment and business affair,” said Erick Thohir in the Kingdom Business Community discussion on Thursday evening, July 2.

Due to this double role and added with a number of irresponsible board members, Erick said that there had been 53 corruption cases in the past years within State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) and it costed the nation dearly.

However, Erick Thohir made it clear that he is currently attempting to create a system to define between SOEs that are profit-oriented and those that are focused on public services to make a clear definition about the firm’s key performance indicators and how board members can follow that path.

“We, as SOEs, are not perfect. We will continue to restructure, consolidate, and transform, so we can have a clear task between [state responsibilities] and as a corporation,” said Erick.

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EKO WAHYUDI