---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- ANTARA, JULY 23 1999 Comment: RI Still Needs CGI Financial Aid, Says Veteran Economist Jakarta, July 22 (ANTARA)- Demands by certain quarters in Indonesian society that the government should stop seeking foreign financial aid through the Concultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) are wrong, a veteran economist said here. Prof. Dr. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo said Indonesia still needed foreign aid to the extent that many Indonesians would suffer even more if it was stopped. Sumitro who was economic minister in the former Soekarno and Soeharto governments said he knew that the country's foreign debts had been managed. Inefficiently so that many leakages occured. But this fact should be no reason to demand a stop to foreign aid because the country could still not to do without it. "Thus I think, it is not relevant if the CGI meeting is asked to be cancel due to the leakages," he said, adding that the most crucial problem of this nation was how to save the overseas debts from the leakages. "We need assistance to deal with the leakages," Sumitro said. The senior economist said, in the case of alleged leakage of billions of rupiah in the state oil company, Pertamina, Sumitro said he welcomed the government's policy of applying a world reputable auditor to check the company's financial condition. A number of non-governmental organizations and the National Mandate Party (PAN) have demanded that the CGI meeting be postponed until a new government is formed as the result of the June 7 general election. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Golkar Party, the United Development Party (PPP), and the National Awakening Party (PKB), however, approved that the CGI meeting should proceed as scheduled. The five political parties grabbed meaningful victory in the June 7 polls in terms of votes and seats at tha House of Representatives. Regardless of pros and cons in Indonesian society, the World Bank's Country Director for Indonesia Mark Baird told reporters here Wednesday that the CGI meeting will go on as scheduled bu he promised the meeting will talk about the good governance issues as demanded by the NGOs. CGI donators are expected to pledge 5.5 to six billion US dollars to Indonesia. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Indonesian government have committed to combat corruption in the crisis-hit country of more than 202 million people in a bid to create the good governance, Umar said, a ranking official of the Coordinating Minister for Development Supervision and state Administrative Reform in a seperate occasion Thursday. (T.ANTARA TEAM/NN-03/20:37/INT-AJM-01:00/nn-03/TB02) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 27 Jul 1999 jam 06:10:01 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
