Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut B. Pandjaitan emphasized the government’s commitment to pay government debt in regards with claims made by cooking oil traders over the price gap incurred as a results of the government’s one-price cooking program.
“We must resolve (the issues) regarding the cooking oil price gap immediately so that traders will not suffer losses. This has been audited by the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) and there is no issue,” Luhut said after chairing the Coordination Meeting on Payment of Cooking Oil Price Gap on Monday, March 25,2024.
On that occasion, Luhut asked the Attorney General’s Office for confirmation regarding the legal aspects of the government’s debt payment obligations.
“We have made a LO to anticipate so that the policies taken do not have legal risks in the future. We refer to the calculation made by Sucofindo as the surveyor,” the Attorney General’s Office said.
Luhut said the claims that were not accommodated were due to document problems. According to him, a number of claims could not be processed due to incomplete supporting documents for the payment claim.
“If the problem is incomplete documents, of course we cannot do anything because it violates the rules. But if there are documents that we can help push, especially for small traders, we can guide them to sort it out, the important thing is to pay attention to the legal aspects,” Luhut said.
For the record, representatives from BPKP, Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency ( BPDKS), Ministry of State Secretary, Presidential Staff Office, Coordinating Ministry for the Economy and the Ministry of Industry expressed their support to immediately finalize the payment of claims according to Sucofindo’s verification results.
“As conveyed from Sucofindo, from a total of 54 business actors who have submitted their claims, the amount of claims verified is around Rp. 474 billion or US$ 30 billion . The business actors consist of modern retailers and traditional businesses,” said Director General of Domestic Trade, Isy Karim.
Regarding the payment settlement, Luhut reminded that the delay in payment is closely related to the fate of traders so it needs to be resolved immediately.
“All of us government officials must remember the merchants. This was supposed to be their capital, so it stopped rotating. That also has a considerable impact. We must understand that, they also have limited capital,” Luhut concluded.
As previously reported by bisnis.com,The Indonesian Retailers Association (Aprindo) ensures that it will continue to take the issue of cooking oil price difference to the realm of law. Aprindo Chairman Roy Nicholas Mandey said that retailers will not back down to fight for their rights. This is because retailers have carried out their obligation to sell packaged cooking oil at one price of Rp14,000 per litre as directed by Minister of Trade Regulation No.3/2022 on the Provision of Packaged Cooking Oil for Community Needs in the Financing Framework by the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency.
“We have been wronged, we did it sincerely but it was not understood, not resolved. It’s not a matter of not being able, not being able, but [the government] has no intention of resolving,” Roy said in January.
Meanwhile, his party is preparing the files needed to put the problem into the realm of law. Roy admitted that the submission process tends to be slow because his party needs to ensure that its legal standing is fulfilled. He said that the agreement with the government at that time was not directly to retailers but to producers, so retailers and producers affected by the price gap problem jointly sued the government to resolve the problem. The certainty to sue the government together was only received by Aprindo in November 2023. Thus, Roy said, the parties affected by this problem are complete and ready to continue to the court.
The polemic stems from the issuance of Minister of Trade Regulation (Permendag) No.3/2022. This regulation requires retailers to sell cooking oil at one price of Rp14,000 per litre starting 19 January 2022.
Muhammad Lutfi, the then Minister of Trade, said that the payment of the price difference would be paid 17 working days after retailers completed the payment documents to the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS).
This regulation was later revoked and replaced with Minister of Trade regulation No. 6/2022 on the Determination of the Highest Retail Price (HET) of Cooking Oil. Despite the revocation, Article 9 of the regulation explicitly states that registered business actors who have carried out the supply of cooking oil must be paid after verification by surveyors.
