REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Former Vice President, Jusuf Kalla explained that he rejected Bank Century's bailout on November 25, 2008 worth 2.7 trillion IDR at that time. He said that there was a Government Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perpu), which said that the state did not need to bail out the missing fund from failed bank due to poor management.
Government could not disburse a blanket guarantee or full assurance to the failed bank. The fall of Century was not caused the economic crisis, but bank's failure itself.
"If we gave a blanket guarantee, we could repeat the same mistake in 1998. Government has disbursed about 600 trillion IDR of funds to recover banks and we paid the foreign debts until now," Kalla said in a trial case at Jakarta Corruption Court on Thursday.
The provision of short term financing facility (FPJP) to Bank Century was still in corridor of rule. However, it has no legal basis when the bailout was given. Government through Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS) did only guarantees saving or deposits up to a maximum of 2 billion IDR. However, in Century case, government has poured trillions IDR for the failed bank because of being robbed, not due to economic crisis.