THE EDITOR – At the beginning of their first year in office, President Prabowo Subianto and Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka had to deal with a corruption scandal that stunned the world. Indonesia reportedly lost up to IDR 1 quadrillion due to alleged fraud in the procurement of crude oil governance and refinery products at Pertamina Subholding during the period 2018 – 2023.
The said Pertamina Subholding is PT Pertamina Patra Niaga which focuses on the trading field of refined petroleum. This company is tasked to supply petroleum fuels for onshore industry needs such as mining, energy, plantations, as well as bunker fuel needs in the maritime sector.
But, on Monday, 24 February 2025, the Attorney General’s Office uncovered a corruption case within PT Pertamina Patra Niaga. It discovered that there was an attempt to smuggle by changing the RON (research octane number) to produce Pertamax fuel.
In the field, the AGO found that RON 88 was mixed with RON 92 so that it could be marketed at the normal price of RON 92. In other words, people who buy Pertamax type fuel but only get the standard Pertalite type fuel.
The state reportedly lost up to IDR 1,000 trillion or the equivalent of IDR 1 quadrillion. This number term has been trending on social media since 2024 because of the exorbitant debt and credit cases.
NEW SUBSTITUTES IN THE OIL INDUSTRY
Attorney General Burhanuddin on Gaspol aired by Kompas.com on Friday, 14 March 2025, denied that the investigation of corruption cases at Pertamina was part of the exchange of substitutes in the oil industry.
Internal Pertamina, which is still under the spotlight, has not stopped some people from taking advantage.
Because from the search in the period February to March 2025, The Editor found the fact that a number of new players were rumoured to have been present in several Pertamina subsidiaries.
SS, one of the staff working at Pertamina Holding, said that in the past month they had been visited by several people.
Their presence was to ask for a place in several projects related to Pertamina’s subsidiaries.
BAD PRECEDENT FOR INDONESIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Economic and political analyst Anthony Budiawan said that corruption cases in subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are not new.
However, he warned that if this kind of corruption case is not resolved thoroughly, it will add to Indonesia’s bad precedent for foreign investors.
There are already so many foreign companies that refuse to invest in Indonesia such as Apple, Tiktok, Tesla, Starlink, Nvidia and most recently a local company from Aceh called Indonesia Airlines Group.
This corruption case at Pertamina Patra Niaga occurred from 2018-2023. Looking back, the Ministry of SOEs in the 2014-2019 period was led by Rini Soemarno.
Meanwhile, in 2019-2023, a similar position was held by Erick Thohir, which continued until 2025.
Anthony also said that the corruption case involving Erick Thohir was not limited to the case at PT Pertamina.
He pointed out that the case of Telkomsel’s alleged investment scandal into PT Goto Gojek Tokopedia Tbk (GOTO), according to him, is also still very well remembered by the public where the potential state losses reached Rp6.4 trillion.
“Until when we see investors refusing to invest in Indonesia?” he said.
Despite this, Anthony remains optimistic that the discovery of new corruption cases by the Attorney General’s Office will be a light that many have been waiting for.
