KPK to investigate Monsanto bribery case

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Corruption Eradication Commission to investigate Monsanto

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Mon, 10 Jan 2005 08:35:30 GMT

 

KPK to investigate Monsanto bribery case

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KPK to investigate Monsanto bribery case

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

10 January, 2005

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20050110.B02 & irec=10

 

JAKARTA: The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said it was ready

to investigate a bribery case involving U.S.-based Monsanto Co., one of

the world's leading developers of genetically modified crops.

 

Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas, the KPK deputy chairman, said on Saturday

that the commission is scheduled to meet lawyers representing Monsanto

soon.

 

" They have promised to cooperate, " he said, referring to a meeting

between KPK and Monsanto's lawyers last year.

 

According to Erry, his commission had sent official letters to the

United States Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the

Department

of Justice, via the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, but there had not yet

been a response.

 

The commission will focus on the bribery case, which allegedly involved

a significant number of senior officials with the Office of the State

Minister for Environment and the agriculture ministry here, he added.

 

Monsanto, which was charged with violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt

Practices Act, has agreed to pay a US$1 million penalty to settle charges

of bribing Indonesian government officials.

 

According to the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange

Commission, the bribery case started in 1998 when Monsanto wanted

Indonesia to

accept genetically-modified (GM) crops.

 

It hired a Jakarta-based investment consulting firm to lobby for

legislation and ministerial decrees favorable to the development of GM

crops

here.

 

" In February of 2001, Monsanto obtained limited approval from

Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture, for farmers in South Sulawesi,

Indonesia,

to grow its Bollgard Cotton, a GM crop, " the website said.

 

But later in the year, the environment ministry issued a decree

requiring environmental impact assessment prior to the cultivation of the

Monsanto's Bollgard Cotton in this country.

 

As the decree was likely to have an adverse effect on Monsanto's

business interests in Indonesia, Monsanto lobbied the environment

ministry to

withdraw the decree. People from Monsanto met with a senior environment

ministry official on several occasions.

 

Sometime in February 2002, an employee of the consulting firm which

represented Monsanto visited the senior official at his home and gave him

an envelope containing $50,000 in $100 bills.

 

Despite the cash payment, the senior official never repealed the AMDAL

requirement for Monsanto's products.

 

The website also disclosed that from 1997 to 2002, Monsanto made at

least $700,000 in illicit payments to at least 140 current and former

Indonesian government officials and their family members.

 

The largest single set of payments was for the purchase of land and the

design and construction of a house in the name of a wife of a senior

Ministry of Agriculture official, which cost Monsanto $373,990.

 

Other improper payments included, among others, payments to a senior

official of Budget Allocations at the National Planning and Development

Agency (Bappenas), totaling $86,690, and payments to other Ministry of

Agriculture officials, totaling $8,100.

 

Officials of the South Sulawesi office of the agriculture ministry also

received approximately $29,500 from Monsanto.

 

 

 

 

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