Menteri ESDM Sudirman Said di Mata Media Asing

Indonesian Energy Minister Bemoans Bad Luck

Editor : Ismail Gani
Translator : Novita Cahyadi


Menteri ESDM Sudirman Said di Mata Media Asing
Dukungan publik melalui media sosial terhadap Sudirman Said dalam kasus dugaan pencatutan nama Presiden Jokowi oleh Ketua DPR Setya Novanto (Foto: istimewa)

TIDAKLAH mudah menjadi menteri reformis di Indonesia, kata Sudirman Said, Menteri Energi Sumber Daya Mineral (ESDM), dalam kata sambutannya pada Jumat.

Segera setelah dia didapuk menjadi menteri pada Oktober 2014, Presiden Joko Widodo dimasukkan Sudirman Said bertugas membersihkan sektor energi yang carut-marut. Kini sang menteri tampaknya harus kerja keras untuk menuntaskan tanggung jawabnya.

"Tidak ada menteri yang bernasib sial seperti saya," kata Sudirman pada sebuah kegiatan di Bandung, menurut sebuah pernyataan media yang diunggah di situs Kementerian ESDM.

"Tidak ada kementerian lain di mana mantan menterinya berada di penjara, sekretaris jenderalnya masuk bui, kepala SKK Migas meringkuk di balik jeruji besi dan beberapa anggota (parlemen) dari komisi energi juga masuk bui."

Segera setelah ia menempati kantornya, Sudirman melaksanakan perombakan pada sistem kerja dan pelayanan di kementeriannya yang tercemar kasus korupsi, mewajibkan semua direksi atas mengkaji ulang pekerjaan mereka, seperti dikutip Reuters yang dilansir MailOnline.

Sang menteri baru-baru ini menjadi perbincangan publik terkait dengan rekaman percakapan ketua parlemen Setya Novanto diduga mencoba meminta saham di PT Freeport Indonesia, yang mengoperasikan salah satu tambang tembaga dan emas terbesar di kawasan timur Indonesia.

Indonesia, negara kepulauan berpenduduk sekitar 250 juta orang kaya akan sumber daya, secara rutin berdasarkan peringkat dari Transparency International dinyatakan sebagai salah satu negara paling korup di dunia.

Pendahulu Sudirman, Jero Wacik, mengundurkan diri pada September 2014, setelah ditetapkan sebagai tersangka dalam kasus yang melibatkan pemerasan dan suap bernilai sekitar US$841.000.
Beberapa bulan sebelumnya, mantan kepala regulator energi Indonesia, SKKMigas, dipenjara selama tujuh tahun karena terbukti menerima suap dari US$1 juta dari pemilik perusahaan minyak yang berbasis di Singapura.

IT'S NOT always easy being a reformist minister in Indonesia, as Sudirman Said, the country's energy minister, made plain in remarks on Friday.

Soon after he took office in October 2014, President Joko Widodo put Said in charge of cleaning up the crooked energy sector. Now the minister seems rather jaded by his job.

"There was no minister as unlucky as me," Said told an anti-corruption hearing in the city of Bandung, according to a media statement posted on the energy ministry's website.

"There were no other ministries where the minister is in prison, the secretary-general is in prison, the head of the oil and gas regulator is in prison and several members of the (parliament) energy commission are in prison."

Soon after he took office, Said launched a major shakeup of the graft-tainted ministry, requiring all top directors to re-apply for their jobs.

The minister recently went public with recordings of a conversation in which parliament speaker Setya Novanto allegedly tried to extort shares in the local unit of Freeport McMoRan Inc , which operates one of the world's biggest copper and gold mines in eastern Indonesia.

Indonesia, an archipelago of some 250 million people rich in resources, is routinely ranked by watchdog Transparency International as one of the world's most corrupt countries.

Said's predecessor, Jero Wacik, stepped down in September 2014 after being named a suspect in a case involving extortion and kickbacks worth about $841,000.

A few months before that, the former head of Indonesia's energy regulator, SKKMigas, was jailed for seven years for taking more than $1 million in bribes from the owner of a Singapore-based oil company.